


Not All Of It

by icbiwf



Category: Hunger Games (2012), Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-08
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2017-12-07 21:18:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 96,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/753172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icbiwf/pseuds/icbiwf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Not all of it,” she said. “Then how much?” he asked. What if she tried to explain? What if he gave her the chance to? What if Katniss was able to sort out her feelings at the end of The Hunger Games? How would events have unfolded if the Star-Crossed Lovers were real? Begins with the train scene at the end of HG, AU for CF and MJ.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Only Love

**Author's Note:**

> This is the beginning of a CF/MJ AU that I've been working on for the past year. I was waiting to post it until it was complete, because I don't want to be one of those people with ten different unfinished stories posted, but I submitted this opening chapter for Prompts in Panem's Visual Prompts week for the Canon Location prompt The Train.
> 
> If you want to know what motivated me to write this AU, then read the rest of this Author's Note. If you don't care, then skip straight to the story.
> 
> I started devouring THG fic right after I finished reading MJ, mostly because I found MJ to be such an unsatisfying ending. I started with post-MJ fics, then moved on to in-Panem AUs, before really finding my jam with out-of-Panem AUs. I read a hundred different Everlark fics that featured Katniss finally admitting her feelings for Peeta, anywhere from pre-HG to post-MJ, but they all seemed to end there. Katniss and Peeta getting together seemed to be the end of the story, in every story I read, while the question in my mind, the question that had lead me to seek out HG fic in the first place, was What happens next? How would the rest of the story have happened, after they were together? How would them being together have changed the story? So I began writing.
> 
> (Note: I'm not saying other such stories don't exist, nor even that they didn't at the time. I just hadn't found them yet.)
> 
> So that's what this story is. This isn't a story about Katniss falling in love with Peeta; for the purposes of this story, that already happened in the novel The Hunger Games. This isn't a story about Katniss and Peeta stumbling and fumbling their way towards a relationship; that happens by the end of this prologue. In this story, Katniss and Peeta will not be trying their hardest to sabotage their relationship. Katniss will not hide from her feelings. Peeta will not ignore her for six months. Neither one of them will use Gale as an excuse to avoid each other.
> 
> This is a story about Katniss and Peeta, in a relationship. Katniss loves Peeta. Peeta loves Katniss. They are together. And together they face the Capitol, President Snow, President Coin, the Victory Tour, the Quarter Quell, the rebellion, the war, and all the other adversaries and obstacles of Catching Fire and Mockingjay.
> 
> Fair warning: Catching Fire skips half a year between the 74th Games and the Victory Tour, but I don't, because that's when the lovebirds have to figure out what it means to have a relationship back home and deal with the repercussions and fallout of their sudden bonding. So there's six months of Katniss and Peeta adjusting to life back in District 12 and adjusting to life as a couple before the plot of Catching Fire finally comes into this story.
> 
> Oh, and if you were wondering: I don't own The Hunger Games. I don't own the characters in this story, the situations they find themselves in, or the small quotes from the original books that I incorporated into this story. This story is meant purely for entertainment and amusement.
> 
> So now, let us join our pair of Star-Crossed Lovers, in the fair fuel depot where we lay our scene…
> 
> (I also don't own Romeo and Juliet. Just in case there was any confusion.)

“It was all for the Games,” Peeta says. “How you acted.”

“Not all of it,” I say, tightly holding onto my flowers.

“Then how much? No, forget that. I guess the real question is, what’s going to be left when we get home?” he says.

“I don’t know. The closer we get to District Twelve, the more confused I get,” I say. He waits, for further explanation. I don’t feel ready to give one, so to deflect him I change the subject back to him. “So what about you, you’re saying you never played anything up for the audience? You were being sincere the entire time?”

“Yes,” he says, and the pain in his voice is palpable. “I thought we both were.”

I’m usually reticent to explain myself, more comfortable letting a conversation wither and die rather than risk saying anything too revealing about myself. But somehow, after everything we’ve been through, everything I’ve shared with Peeta Mellark over the last month, in this moment something in me forces words out. “Peeta, I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know what to make of you. You were trying to be friendly, then you tried to push me away. We trained together, then you shut me out. You announced you loved me on television, but then in the arena you helped the Careers hunt me down. You saved my life, but I couldn’t even tell if that really happened or if it was a tracker jacker hallucination. And the entire time I knew that it didn’t really matter if we did care about each other, because for one of us to go home we’d have to kill the other.”

“Katniss,” he says, “I would never have killed you. I love you. For real, not because of any strategy or scheme or Game. From the moment my name was called, my only goal was to keep you alive.”

The sincerity in Peeta’s voice takes me aback. When I reply, my voice is small. “I know that now. But even if you had tried to tell me that before the Games, I doubt I would have believed you. I would have thought it was all part of your strategy to win.”

“Is that what you were doing?” he asks sadly. “Were you trying to set me up so I’d be easier to kill?”

“No,” I answer, “I was trying to set _me_ up so you’d be easier to kill.” I start to blush from the embarrassment of this admission, but I see only confusion in Peeta’s eyes so I push on. “You never knew what you meant to me. The boy with the bread. That day in the rain behind the bakery, that was everything to me. When my father was gone, and my mother failed me, and the whole world seemed to turn its back on me, you were the only one who helped me. You were my one ray of hope in a world of darkness. You were my dandelion in the spring, my one sign that things could be good again. You saved my life, you saved my whole family’s lives. And as soon as you were reaped I knew that the only way I could ever see them again was to kill you.” My breath catches in my throat, and I feel like I may cry. I blink away tears as the words start to tumble out of my mouth seemingly on their own. “It only got worse when we were on the train and I started to get to know you as a real person and not just a spectre out of my past. But the whole time all I could think was that in a week one of us was going to have to kill the other! I didn’t know what to do or what to think, I didn’t know if you were being sincere or you were trying to manipulate me, I was so confused I didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t.”

Peeta seems to consider this for a long moment. “And what about now?” he says. 

“Now, I don’t know,” I say. “So much has happened so quickly, and I haven’t let myself stop to think about any of it, because the only thought I allowed myself was how to keep us alive. Now that we’re safely out of the Capitol I’m trying to process everything, trying to make some sense of it.”

I don’t know exactly what response I expect from Peeta, but I know I don’t get it. Instead he merely stares at me for a moment, then says, “Well, let me know when you work it out,” and turns to leave.

For a moment, I watch him go. My new ear listening to every footfall of his new leg. Somehow I know that if I let him walk away now I’ll lose him forever, and I surprise myself again by admitting that I don’t want that to happen. “Peeta!” I call after him. “Peeta, wait!” But he doesn’t slow. I run after him trying to catch him before he makes it back on the train and he’s able to put a locked door between us. “Peeta, stop!” I call out, and now I can feel the tears I tried to hold back starting to flow. 

When I catch up to Peeta, I grab him over the shoulder and yank him around, shoving him up against the side of the train. His eyes are wide with shock, I can tell his mind is still in survival mode from the Games, but then his whole face softens as he sees the tears on my face. I speak quickly before he gets a chance because I’m afraid of what he might say right now. “Don’t walk away from me, Peeta! You can’t spend ten years pining away for me and then walk away in a huff because I need more than a few hours without the threat of imminent death to figure out how I feel! Not after everything we’ve been through together. Don’t you dare do that to me!”

“What do you want me to do, Katniss?” he yells back, and now he’s starting to cry too. “You’ve told me so many different things I don’t know which way is up anymore! And when I ask you about it you tell me that you don’t know either. So what would you have me do?”

“Help me!” I exclaim. “Help me figure out what was real and what wasn’t. Help me figure out what’s up and what’s down. Help me figure out what we are to each other.”

“Here’s a start: Everything I said was one hundred percent real,” he says, starting to sound angry.

I roll my eyes. “Oh, really? How about when you helped the Careers hunt me down, when you told them to strand me up a tree until I starved and kill me when I tried to come down for food? That was real? One hundred percent real?”

He seems genuinely angry now. “I was trying to protect you!”

“So now it’s okay when you lie to protect me but it’s not okay when I lie to protect you?” Peeta looks confused at this, and I can’t believe he still doesn’t get it. Didn’t he see the sponsor gifts we got? Where did he think those came from? Did he think everyone was as kindhearted and honest as he was? Hadn’t he ever met his mother? “Do you think we would have gotten any food if I hadn’t pretended to love you? Do you think a heartfelt and genuine ‘I don’t know how I feel, this is all happening so fast,’ would have gotten us the medicine for your leg? Do you think there’s any chance in hell they would have let us both live if I hadn’t acted the way I did?” I can tell from the look on Peeta’s face that no, in fact, he hadn’t thought about any of that before. “I kept us alive with my kisses just as much as I did with my bow, so don’t stand here with your full belly and your healthy blood and your beating heart and try to tell me I did anything wrong!”

Peeta just looks at me for a moment. I spent the whole Games marveling at his skill with words, and now I’ve rendered him speechless. Finally he looks away and mumbles something so quietly that I have to ask him to repeat it. 

“Eleven years,” he says, sighing loudly, “not ten. It was eleven years I spent pining away for you, too chicken to actually introduce myself.”

“Eleven years is a long time to wait to just give up and walk away,” I say.

Peeta looks at me for a long time. “I suppose so,” he finally says.

Before either of us says anything else, the train whistle interrupts us. “We should get back on the train,” Peeta says, but he makes no move to do so. 

“Together,” I say, extending my free hand towards him. It’s a request, but not a question.

Peeta stares at me for a long moment, but finally takes my hand. “Together.”

…..

It’s late. Peeta and I are alone in the lounge car as the darkness slips by outside. Haymitch and Effie have gone to bed for the night. It was awkward on the train after our fuel stop, everyone knew there was a new tension between Peeta and me but thankfully nobody tried to bring it up. The only comment made was from Haymitch, on his way to his room for the night clutching a bottle in each hand, calling over his shoulder, “Remember you two, you’ve got a show to put on tomorrow.”

Peeta and I share a couch, sipping hot chocolate. My onion flowers are in a crystal vase to the side. We’re having a long conversation about our feelings, and I’m surprising myself by participating in a long conversation about my feelings. 

“I spent so much time at the Training Center, really starting as soon as your name was called at the reaping, trying to convince myself that I could to kill you. Because I knew it was the only way I could come home. And it was really hard for me, because I didn’t want to kill you. Not because I’m any kind of a good person or because I’m above killing, I killed people in the arena and I’d do it again if it meant going back home to Prim. But I didn’t think I could kill _you_. Because of the bread.”

“In a weird way, I was relieved when I was reaped. As soon as you volunteered to be the tribute, I thought about volunteering so I could be there to help you. But if I couldn’t even screw up the courage to talk to you, how could I volunteer for the Games? And what business did I have? What made me think I would even be capable of helping you in any way, or that you would accept my help? And while all of these conflicting thoughts were battling it out in my head, my name was called and the decision was made for me.”

“At first, it wasn’t real, for me. A kiss for the sponsors so they would send us some food, a kiss for the Gamemakers so they had a good enough show to leave us alone until you healed. It was all part of the game. But then, suddenly, it wasn’t. That kiss, in the cave, after I came back from the feast. The one that you stopped because you thought I was bleeding too heavily? I felt that kiss, in a way that I hadn’t with any of the others. That was a real kiss. The full-blown panic I flew into when we were separated in the woods and you didn’t answer my calls, that was real. Deciding I’d rather kill myself than come home without you, that was real. The hysterical fit I had when they separated us on the hovercraft, that was real. And it scares me to death to feel that much. It scares me to care that much about another person.”

“I think I knew, deep down. I know enough about you that I should have known. You’re not the type of person who declares their undying love for someone they barely know. I could tell you were forcing yourself to act, I could tell how reluctant and how uncomfortable you were, but I just told myself it was because of the Games, or because of the audience, or because you were new to the whole romance thing. I mean, when you found me by the river I as much as told you to act like we were in love, and then when you did I fell for the act anyway. I didn’t want to admit the obvious, because I thought I finally had what I’d always dreamed about having: You.”

“After my father died, my mother just turned off. She couldn’t handle the pain, so she just tuned out the world for a while. She would spend all day, every day, just staring off into space, oblivious to anything happening around her. Oblivious to her children starving. I hated her for that, I still hate her for that, because we needed her. Prim and I needed her. She was all we had left, and she abandoned us. That’s what love is to me. Vulnerability. Weakness. My mother loved my father so much that she let her children starve. After that I told myself I would never let myself fall in love, because I didn’t want to end up like my mother. I never wanted to care about someone so much that losing them would have that effect on me. And then I found myself in the arena, deciding that I’d rather kill myself than have to watch you die.”

“I hate to say it, because I hate the Games and I hate the Capitol. But the happiest I’ve ever been in my life was during those interviews, when I thought you really loved me, when you were by my side with my arm wrapped around you and we were going home together.”

“I hate to admit it, because of everything I’ve been through in my life: I lost my father, I almost starved to death, I’ve had to fend for myself and my family since I was eleven, I fought for my life in the arena. But this might be the most scared I’ve ever been in my life. I think I really am falling in love with you, and it terrifies me.”

Finally we seem to have talked ourselves out. I have no idea how late it is now, it feels like we’ve been talking for hours. I find myself staring into Peeta’s eyes for an endless moment, losing myself in them. He’s staring back at me, what does he see in my eyes? Does he lose himself in my eyes like I’m losing myself in his? Is that love?

Eventually Peeta breaks the silence. “What about Gale?” he asks softly.

I want to dismiss the question out of hand, but we’ve been too honest with each other tonight, so I force myself to really think. What about Gale? How do I feel about Gale? Do I love him? In a way I do, he’s like a brother to me, but do I love him the way I’m afraid I might love Peeta? Do I even know enough about love to answer the question?

“Gale,” I begin, “is my best friend. He’s practically my brother. Since my father died, he’s the one person in the world I’ve been able to trust, truly trust. I’m closer to Prim, but I can’t really confide in her sometimes because I’m trying to protect her. Gale has been my only companion, my only confidante.” I pause, and take Peeta’s hand. “But I’ve never had a conversation like this with him. I couldn’t imagine trusting him with some of the things we’ve said tonight. Before tonight I couldn’t imagine myself ever trusting anyone enough to even have a conversation like this.” I pause and lose myself in Peeta’s eyes for another moment. He doesn’t say anything, so I continue. “I started off in the Games, pretending to love you. And then at some point, without even realizing it, I wasn’t pretending anymore. Then in the interviews I had to pretend again, because even if I did have genuine feelings for you they wouldn’t be enough for the cameras. And then thinking about going home, and thinking about my family, and yes thinking about Gale, all of my old fears came back and I managed to convince myself that it was all pretend after all, that I was just confused and I was so wrapped up in the Games that I didn’t know what I was thinking. But now, sitting here tonight, talking with you, talking for real - with no cameras, no audience, no threat of imminent death - I can’t deny how I feel, no matter how much it scares me.”

“So what are you saying?” Peeta asks gently.

“Peeta, I don’t know if I love you the way that you love me. I don’t know if I would even be able to recognize it if I did. But I know that I completely lost it the few times I thought I might lose you. I know there isn’t another human being alive I would be able to have this conversation with, there’s no one else I trust enough or feel comfortable enough with to discuss myself in this much depth. I know that I felt safer in that cave with you than I have any night I’ve spent alone in luxurious Capitol beds since. I know that when I look into your eyes, I lose all sense of my surroundings and all I want to do is keep staring. I know that sometimes, when I kiss you, when I’m not consumed by terror and I’m not trying too hard to put on a show, sometimes I just lose myself in the kiss and my whole body flutters and I never want it to end. I know I’d be miserable without you in my life, and it terrifies me to be that dependant on another person, but I know that the only way I can face that fear is with you there to give me strength.” 

Peeta smiles at me. “I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but what you’re describing sounds an awful lot like love.”

This really is the oddest conversation I’ve ever had, because instead of clamping my mouth shut and retreating behind a wall of embarrassment, I return the smile. “Well then, I guess maybe I love you.”

Peeta suddenly bursts out laughing. I compare this to his reactions this afternoon at the fuel depot, and decide that I’m not the only one who seems to have been changed by this conversation we’re having. “You know, I’ve spent a lot of years dreaming of a day when you’d say something like that to me. It’s hardly the most conventional declaration of love, but it may be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.”

I can feel my face redden, but my smile only deepens. “You should know by now, I’m hardly the most conventional girl.”

“Hardly. But you are definitely the most beautiful,” he says, and leans in to kiss me.

The moment our lips meet, I can tell this isn’t like any other kiss we’ve shared before. This isn’t hesitant, or fleeting, or desperate. It’s not the least bit uncomfortable. We’re not sick, or injured, or starving, or dying. There are no cameras filming us, no audience watching us, no Gamemakers or sponsors or president judging us. This kiss is only for each other, and neither of us is pretending, not one bit. Peeta’s lips are warm, and soft, forceful yet giving, and somehow still taste like fresh dough even though I know it’s been at least a month since he’s been near any. I can feel my body react as our lips part and our tongues meet, there’s a hunger in me that’s both stronger than ever before and yet not as overpowering, perhaps because I’m finally willing to admit that it’s there, finally willing to see a day in our future when I might satisfy it. This is a kiss between two lovers, this is a kiss meant to express love, and it breaks down all remnants of resistance in me. I can no longer deny how I feel. I can no longer deny my love for Peeta. And after, when we’re leaning our foreheads against each other and panting for air, when I recover enough breath to look straight into Peeta’s impossibly blue eyes and tell him, “I love you,” it’s completely real. There’s no more pretending, no more hesitation, no more fear. Only love. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it, Katniss and Peeta are officially together. For the rest of this story, they will face their trials and travails as a united front.
> 
> Next chapter: What happens when they get back to District 12?
> 
> Preview quote from Chapter 2:
> 
>  
> 
> _"Because I didn't want you to come home with him. I wanted you to come home to me."_


	2. Coming Home

The first few weeks after the Games is a whirlwind of official events we have to attend – parties, banquets, ceremonies, celebrations, it doesn't stop. For almost a month Peeta and I are on camera every day. The only highlight is the first Parcel Day, when the residents of Twelve receive the extra food rations that go to the winning district. It's the most food anyone in the Seam has had since Haymitch won his Games.

Ironically enough, because Peeta and I have to spend so much time pretending to be in love, we don't have any time during that month to actually be in love. We barely see each other when we we're not putting on a show for the cameras. Every day it's the same thing: Prep teams, official events, more prep teams, some kind of ball or banquet or dinner, then we return to our separate homes in the Victor's Village.

The whirlwind schedule may have forced this separation anyway, but part of me blames my mother. She told one of the Capitol interviewers at the train station that she thought I was too young for a boyfriend. Apparently she suddenly decided to try to act like a mother again, but forgot that I'm not eleven anymore. The Capitol people, not realizing that she stopped being my mother five years ago when she abandoned Prim and me, took her opinion as law. So while Haymitch spends each day pushing me to drape myself all over Peeta to sell the love story, at night Effie seems even more bound and determined to enforce what she sees as "proper behavior" now that she has my mother's prohibition backing her up. It makes me want to stab Effie with one of her ridiculously high heels, and makes me even more resistant to my mother's misguided attempts at parenting me.

One night, Peeta and I sneak out together, just for an hour or so, just so we can spend some time together. When we return, we find that Effie has woken half the district to organize search parties and has already called for backup from the Capitol. It's enough to convince us to just wait out the rest of the month. My mother doesn't want to let me leave the house at all after that, and since I can't go hunting or go to the Hob with all of the Capitol people here and I can't go see Peeta with Effie hovering about, I don't even fight her on it.

The whole mess points toward one of the many unanswered questions in our relationship. Mom says I'm too young for a boyfriend; is that what Peeta is, my boyfriend? Somehow that label doesn't feel right, but since I have zero experience with boyfriends and have only been in love with Peeta off-camera for a total of a few hours, I have no way to answer the question. Right now all we are is props by day, estranged neighbors by night.

The separation does serve to reinforce to me how much I really do love Peeta. Sometimes I don't realize how important something is to me until it's taken away, and this turns out to be the case with Peeta. All I want to do is spend time with him alone, just the two of us, and I spend the month counting down the days until Effie and the cameras go back to the Capitol and Peeta and I can be together for real, with only my easily-ignored mother in our way. I still have no idea what that will mean, we haven't even had a chance to discuss it. The only time we get to talk is every so often when we're left to wait together while some event is set up or while some official introduces us, but these moments only last a few minutes and even then we're surrounded by other officials so we can't really talk freely.

As the month wears on, I can feel myself slowly shutting down. I never get a full night's sleep anymore because of nightmares about the Games. I completely lose my appetite, if it wasn't for all of the banquets and dinners we have to attend I wouldn't eat. When I'm home I just feel listless. As much as I hate the filmed events we have to attend, the only time I really feel alive is when I'm with Peeta. Even when most of our time is spent pretending to be Capitol Katniss and Capitol Peeta, there are moments when it's just us. A quick look before stepping out on stage, the spark I feel when we grasp hands, a few seconds while we kiss when the entire world falls away. In these moments we're just Katniss and Peeta, if only for a moment. If it weren't for these moments, I think I would completely break down. I think back to how my mother reacted after my father died, and I find myself becoming more and more sympathetic to her circumstance. The thought disturbs me, especially when I partly blame her for this separation and the effect it's having on me.

Finally, on the day the camera crews go home, on our first day with no big dinner event we have to attend, we decide to have a private dinner for our families. None of us has had much chance to see each other off-camera. Mom invites my newfound cousins the Hawthornes and I invite the Mellarks and Haymitch, who is surprisingly sober for the occasion. The only one missing is Peeta's mother. She was also conspicuously absent from the Victory events. I know her reaction to our relationship bothers Peeta, but he seems more resigned to it than genuinely hurt.

Dinner goes exceedingly well. Other than the first moments I saw my family at the train station, this is easily my favorite night since the Games. Peeta and I revel in not having to put on a show. His father is quiet as always, but seems to be genuinely enjoying himself. His brothers Rye and Barlee seem to be having fun, plenty of it at our expense. It's the first time since we got back that I've seen the Hawthornes relaxed and not trying to fit in at a Capitolized event. We all wear our normal clothes and not Capitol dress shipped in for the occasion; as much as I love Cinna's designs it's nice to feel normal again. Best of all no one talks much about the Games. Everyone seems to be having a good time other than Gale, who is unusually quiet. I wonder if he's uncomfortable around the Mellarks; Gale often has unkind things to say about merchant families, but he's been trading game at the bakery for years so I'd thought he'd be more comfortable with them than he seems to be. A few of us try to bring him into the conversation but he only gives us short responses.

As my mother and Hazelle are handing out second helpings of stew, the discussion turns to our talents. Every Victor is supposed to develop a talent, a hobby to devote time to since they don't have to work anymore.

"I think I'll try art," Peeta says. "I've spent years icing cakes and I aced the camouflage station. How different could smearing paint on a canvas be?"

"Oh, your cakes are always beautiful!" Prim gushes. She and Peeta took an instant liking to each other before we even left the train station. "I'm sure your paintings will be great! What will your talent be, Katniss?"

I think for a moment as I chew my food. "I don't know. Is hunting a talent?"

"No," grumbles Haymitch. "Hunting is a crime."

"Target shooting?" I offer. Haymitch just gives me a look. "Everybody saw me with a bow in the arena. Wouldn't it appeal to the Capitol audience if my official talent was something they saw me do in the Games?"

"There's only one Capitol audience you need to appeal to," Haymitch warns. "Don't give him an excuse to come down hard on you."

"What was your talent, Haymitch?" Peeta asks.

"Drinking," he grumbles again.

"You should sing, Katniss," suggests Peeta's father. "You have a beautiful singing voice."

I'm a bit taken aback by his comment. "Mr. Mellark, when have you heard me sing?"

Mr. Mellark opens his mouth to respond, but before he can Peeta gently takes my hand and quietly says, "Rue." I try to reply but I only manage to croak a bit. I close my eyes and take several deep breaths to compose myself. Peeta gives me a quick kiss on the temple and tells me it's all right, that I'm safe now. He's the only one who can tell me that and I believe them. I open my eyes and turn to kiss him again before turning back toward everyone else. "Sorry," I stammer out, "Sometimes I forget that everyone saw all of that."

"I'm sorry I mentioned it," Mr. Mellark says to me.

"No, it's not your fault," I tell him. "It's just that Rue's death really gets to me sometimes." I take a drink of water, and decide to try to return to the topic. "But I don't want to sing for my talent. It's too personal for me. I sang with my father, and ever since he died I only sing occasionally. Only for people I love. Not for the entertainment of the Capitol."

"You gotta do something, Sweetheart," Haymitch says. "How about cooking? I could use someone to make meals for me."

My mother is giving Haymitch a dirty look because she thinks he's being insensitive to my emotional breakdown, but I recognize his strategy. My anger at him just hauled me out of the abyss of despair I was falling into and back to reality. Still, I scowl at him, because that's how we are.

"You like spending time in the meadow. How about… flower arranging?" Prim suggests, though even she can't keep a straight face at the suggestion.

"You could play the flute," suggests Rye with a wicked smirk.

"Try art with me," Peeta suggests.

"Oh, no!" I say. "I have no artistic ability whatsoever. I don't want to ruin your talent just because I have nothing to do."

"Come on, it'll be fun," Peeta says, reaching out to palm the side of my head and rubbing my cheek with his thumb, and it's everything I can do to keep my eyes open and not moan audibly. If anybody had tried to tell me a month and a half ago that I would be reacting to someone's touch this way, I probably would have tried to shoot them. "We can do it together," he adds softly, looking deep into my eyes. "This is supposed to be the thing we spend our time on now. Let's do it together."

"Okay," I find myself saying as a huge grin splits my face. After the past month, the thought of doing anything together with Peeta is too appealing to pass up. "I'd like that."

"If worst comes to worst," Peeta says with a mischievous grin, "We'll just display all of my work and say we collaborated."

I laugh with everyone else. "I might smack you for saying that, if I didn't think it would actually come to that!" I say as everyone laughs again.

That's when I notice, everyone is laughing but Gale. He's alternating his stare between his plate and me before he abruptly stands, his chair scraping loudly against the floor. "I'm, uh, just going to get some air," he says, and walks quickly out the back door.

Nobody says anything, merely looking at each other silently. Finally I stand. "I'll go get him." Peeta starts to stand with me, but I put my hand on his shoulder. "Just, give us a few minutes?" I ask. He nods, takes my hand from his shoulder and kisses it. I give his hand a reassuring squeeze before I let go and go looking for Gale.

I find him towards the back of the yard, facing the woods behind the Victor's Village. I walk out towards him but he doesn't acknowledge me. Finally I call out his name.

He flinches when I speak, and spins around to face me. The anger on his face surprises me. "What's going on between you and Mellark?" he demands. "Is this all for real?"

I answer as honestly as I can. "It didn't start out that way, but yes, it's for real."

Gale just glares at me. "Somehow I find that real hard to believe. The last time we talked you were insisting to me how you were never going to have a relationship and never get married. How do you go from that to happily ever after in a few weeks?"

I don't want to get into an argument with Gale, but the accusation in his tone is irritating me. "In case you hadn't noticed, I just went through the single most transformative experience in my life. Nothing in my life is the same after going through the Games."

"Catnip, don't let them change you. You went, you came home, you can just put all of that behind you now."

I shake my head. "No, Gale, you don't understand. I'll never be able to put it behind me."

"What don't I understand? Explain it to me."

"There's nothing to explain, Gale. Nobody who hasn't been in the Games can possibly understand them." How could I explain to Gale the terrors I experienced in the arena? The terrors I continue to experience in my dreams? The constant threat Peeta and I now live under? I can't. Gale looks like he wants to argue this point, so I continue before he can speak. "You want to know the two biggest misconceptions that you're operating under? One, that the winners of the Games are the lucky ones. That the winners are even winners. And two, that the Games end when you leave the arena."

Gale's face twists in anger and frustration. "So what are you saying? That the Capitol is forcing you into a relationship with Mellark?"

"No! Well, they would be if I wasn't already in one." Wait, what the hell am I saying? How is that explanation going to cut through Gale's anger when it didn't even make sense in my head?

Sure enough… "What does that even mean! You're dating him to stop the Capitol from forcing you to date him?"

I just shake my head. We're arguing in circles, and I'm not even sure why we're arguing. "Gale, why does my relationship with Peeta bother you so much? I just survived the Hunger Games. Why can't my best friend just be happy for me? Where is all of this anger coming from?"

Gale takes a step towards me. If this were two months ago and we were in the woods stalking prey I wouldn't give his proximity a second thought, but standing here, now, talking about Peeta, suddenly Gale feels uncomfortably close. When he speaks the anger has left his voice. "Because I didn't want you to come home with _him_. I wanted you to come home to me."

It takes me a moment to realize exactly what Gale is implying, and in that time he closes the distance between us, grabs me by the shoulders, and he kisses me.

I'm so completely taken by surprise that I don't respond at all for a moment. Gale's lips are on mine, and it feels… nothing at all like when Peeta and I kiss. Gale's kiss is demanding, where Peeta's are inviting. Peeta's kisses ignite a fire inside me; right now all I feel is a cold dread in the pit of my stomach.

It isn't until I feel his tongue probing my lips that my brain catches up to the world and I realize _Gale is kissing me_. I suddenly remember I can move and I shove him off of me with all the strength I can muster. He stumbles back several steps, looking at me in shock.

Now it's my turn to be angry. "What the hell, Gale? Where did that come from? What made you think you could do that? Just grab me and…" I can't even finish the sentence, I don't want to say what just happened. I settle for, "Don't ever do that to me again!"

"Come on, Catnip! You don't belong with some soft merchant. Someone who's never had to struggle. Never missed a meal. We belong together, you and me!"

At this point I'm completely fed up with Gale, and I don't try to hide it. "What is it, something in the water? Are you telling me that you're just like Peeta was, having feelings for me but too chicken to say anything? We spent every day together! Practically everyone thought we were already dating anyway! If you really felt that way about me, why didn't you say something before I fell in love with someone else?"

Gale opens his mouth to respond before choking off whatever he was about to say and closing it again. I'm not sure what I said that has affected him until he finally speaks, the anger gone from his voice. "You really love him?"

My heart breaks a little to hear the pain and disappointment in Gale's voice, because I don't want to hurt my best friend this way. But he needs to hear the truth. "Yes, I really do love him."

He looks away from me then, staring off into the woods again. "You always said you were never going to be in a relationship, you were never going to get married. I thought, I had time. I thought there was no reason to rush anything, there was no reason to push you. I thought we were best friends, we'd always be together, and someday when you started to rethink love and marriage and children, I'd be there waiting for you."

Gale's revelation leaves me completely bewildered. I've known him since I was twelve. "We're friends, Gale."

"Yeah, we're friends," he says, staring at his feet, sounding sadder than I've ever heard him. "We were friends and that was great, until it wasn't. I don't remember exactly when I started feeling differently. But I remember one day in the Hob, right after New Year's. We were eating some slop of Greasy Sae's, not up to her usual standards but it was the middle of winter and game was scarce. Darius was playing with your braid, teasing you about trading a rabbit for one of his kisses. And I realized… I minded." He looks up at me briefly before returning his gaze to the ground. "I didn't want him playing with your hair. I didn't want him kissing you. I wanted that to be me."

I want to reach out to him, to comfort him, but after the kiss I don't think physical contact is a good idea. Instead I just say, "I'm sorry, Gale. I never meant to hurt you. You're my best friend, you're like my brother. But that's all you are to me."

"And that's all I'll ever be?" he asks dejectedly. I take the question as rhetorical and simply wait for Gale to continue. "What made you change your mind?" he asks me after a moment. "The last time we talked, on Reaping Day, you were so dead set against this. For years you wouldn't even consider the idea. What changed?"

"I fell in love," I tell him, because I don't have any better answer. Gale just looks confused and frustrated. "I never decided that I wanted to love someone. I just suddenly found that I did."

"Just answer me this," he says, finally looking back at me. "If there was no Peeta, if you came home from the Games by yourself, could we have been together?"

"I don't know. I changed so much in the Games, not just because of Peeta. Being in the Games changes everything about a person. I don't know." I pause for a moment. "Maybe if Prim had never been reaped, if I had never been in the Games, if we had just gone on with our lives and nothing changed, then we might have ended up together. I don't know. But I don't think I would have ever felt about you the way I feel about Peeta. I've never felt for anyone the way I feel for Peeta."

"You really care about him that much?"

"Gale, do you know what we did on our last night before coming home?" I can tell immediately from the way Gale's face darkens what he thinks we did that night. "No, not that! We were on the train, our first real day outside of the Capitol, and we spent the night sitting up alone in the lounge car, having a long conversation about my feelings."

Gale is a bit stunned to hear this. "You? Had a long conversation? About your _feelings_?"

"Yes. I was trying to sort out how I really felt from how I had acted just for the Games, so we sat down together and spent the night talking about it. We talked about how I felt about Peeta. How I felt about you. How Peeta felt about me. How I felt about my father, about his death, about my mother's reaction. How I felt about love, about marriage, about children. And we went through everything that happened in the arena and explained to each other exactly what we were each really thinking and feeling at each step along the way, what was real and what was a play for the Games, and how we each felt about the other's actions and feelings. We were up almost till sunrise talking about how we felt about each other, and that was when I finally had to admit to myself that I really do love Peeta."

Gale just stares at me. It takes him almost a full minute to formulate a response. That one conversation with Peeta might have been longer than every conversation Gale and I have ever had, and it communicated things I would never even consider sharing with Gale. And we both know it.

Finally, he asks me, "Does he make you happy, Catnip?"

I don't even need to think before answering. "More than I ever thought I could be."

His shoulders slump, and he throws out a dejected, "Well, I can't compete with that." Then he turns and starts walking around to the front of the house.

"Gale!" I call after him. "Gale, I'm not trying to chase you away. Come back inside and finish dinner."

He stops, but he doesn't turn around. "I'm sorry, but I just need some time. I need some time to think, some time to adjust. I've spent so much time thinking about our future together-" Gale cuts himself off, unable to continue for a moment. "I don't hate you," he finally says. "If you're as happy with him as you say you are then I'm honestly happy for you. But I just can't do this tonight."

"Gale-"

"Good night, Catnip." With that he disappears around the corner of the house, headed around front towards the road back to town.

I don't chase after him, I don't see the point. But I don't feel ready to go back inside and face everyone yet either, so I head back over to the porch and just sit there for a while.

I try to wrap my mind around everything that just happened. Gale has feelings for me. Gale thinks my relationship with Peeta is fake. Gale wants me to dump Peeta for him. Gale kissed me.

Gale _kissed_ me. Gale kissed me and- well, I didn't let him, exactly, but I didn't stop him either. Not until-

How long did I stand there like a statue and let him kiss me? Seconds? Minutes? Surely not minutes?

What will Peeta say when he finds out? I briefly consider trying to hide this from him, but immediately reject the idea. We just spent a month acting for the cameras. And after seeing the hurt on his face at that fuel depot, I don't ever want to lie to Peeta again.

But what will he think when he finds out about this? Will he blame me? I didn't mean to kiss Gale, but I let it happen. Sort of. Could I have done more to prevent it? Could I have fought him off sooner? Should I have seen it coming? Everyone in Twelve - including Peeta! - assumed there was already something romantic going on between Gale and me, after all.

Would this constitute cheating? Have I cheated on Peeta? It's not like Gale and I slept together, but kissing another man is still considered cheating, right? Then again, were Peeta and I even together to be cheated on? We hadn't even had the chance to discuss it yet!

My mind continues to churn on its own as I sit on the porch and stare into the woods for I don't know how long. I don't notice time passing. I don't even notice Peeta coming outside until he sits down beside me and takes my hand in his. "You okay?" he asks.

I let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding. I know what I have to tell him, but I can't bring myself to do so yet. "I think I just lost my best friend," I say instead.

"Because of me?" Peeta asks, as if he already knows the answer.

"Because of us. Partly. And partly because of the Games."

"How so?"

I want to look at Peeta, to hold onto him and curl myself into his body the way I did those nights in the cave. But I think if I look at him I'll lose whatever nerve I have to speak, so I continue to stare out into the woods. "Gale and I became close because we had so much in common. We could easily relate to each other. We both lost our fathers. We both hunted to support our families. We both took care of our younger siblings. But now I feel like we've lost that closeness, because no matter what happens he'll never understand what it was like in the Games."

Peeta is silent for a moment. "So you're saying I'm not competing with Gale, I'm competing with Haymitch?"

This gets a real laugh out of me, but I stop short when I realize I have to tell him. "Peeta, Gale kissed me."

I can feel Peeta's hand tense for a moment, but he doesn't say anything, so I continue. "Turns out he had… feelings for me after all. He was trying to convince me to be with him and not with you, and I was trying to let him down easy. He thought I was letting the Capitol force us together, and I was trying to explain that he had it all wrong, when he just grabbed me and kissed me."

"What did you do?" Peeta asks carefully.

"I didn't do anything at first. I was just kind of stunned. Then when I got my wits together and realized he was still kissing me I shoved him away from me and told him not to do it again."

"And that's it?" he asks cautiously.

I shrug. "We talked for a little while longer and then he left."

"If that's all it was, why are you telling me this like it's your deepest, darkest confession?"

I let out a deep breath. "Because I love you and I let another man kiss me. Because you thought there was something between me and Gale and I told you there wasn't and apparently I was wrong about that. Because I lied to you in the arena and I just spent a month pretending in front of the cameras and I never want to lie to you about anything again. Because I love you and I trust you and I always want to tell you everything."

Peeta doesn't say anything just then. He lets go of my hand and pulls away, giving me just an instant to panic that he's about to leave me before I feel his arm wrap around my waist. Peeta pulls me tightly to his side and buries a kiss in my hair; I sigh in relief and contentment and lay my head down on his shoulder. "I love you, Katniss," he whispers into my hair. "That's not going to change because of anything Gale does."

His words fill me with warmth even as the feel of his soft breath sends shivers down my spine. I choke out a sound that might be a laugh and might be a sob. "I know I'm new to this whole relationship thing, but I'm pretty sure that I'm not supposed to be kissing other guys."

"Well, did you kiss him or did he kiss you?" he asks me, but his voice is sweet and tender, with none of the tension or caution it contained earlier. His voice sets me at ease enough that I can answer his question.

"He kissed me."

"And when he did, did you kiss him back? Or did you go slack with shock that such a ridiculous thing was happening?"

I can't help but smile at Peeta's characterization of my reaction. "The latter," I tell him.

I can hear the smile in Peeta's voice as he continues his questioning. "And then, did you tell him, 'Oh Gale, your sweet lips feel so good on me!'" he says in a ridiculous high-pitched voice that makes me laugh out loud. "Or did you shove him away from you like you'd just as soon kiss something you scraped off the bottom of your shoe?"

"The latter," I repeat around more laughter.

Peeta turns and kisses me on the top of my head again. "You didn't do anything wrong, Katniss. You can't control what Gale does."

I really want to stop talking and let this conversation end. This is exhausting, explaining myself and putting myself out there like that. But I decided on the train that I would open myself up, that I would share my thoughts with Peeta. Didn't I just say that I want to tell him everything? So instead of closing myself off and letting the conversation peter out, I force myself to voice the real fear that's been motivating me this entire time. "I just don't want to screw this up. I've never done anything like this before, and I'm…" I have to stop and swallow my nerve. Peeta just holds me and waits for me to continue. "I'm _afraid_ , Peeta. I'm used to sticking to what I know, to what's familiar. I could never afford to take chances so I never took any. But now I'm doing something I've never done before, and I have no idea what I'm doing, and I'm just afraid I'll screw it all up and wind up pushing you away. I'm afraid you'll get tired of waiting for me to figure things out and leave."

"I'll never do that," Peeta says harshly.

"You already did, once."

I don't mean that to sound accusatory, but as I feel Peeta's whole body stiffen next to me I can't imagine how else it might sound. "You're right," he says after a moment. I can almost feel him searching for words; when he's speaking to all of Panem he's as relaxed as can be, but somehow when it's just the two of us words elude him. I guess that's why he avoided me for a decade.

"You're right," he repeats. "I almost made the worst mistake of my life. But you stopped me. You didn't screw anything up, you stopped me from screwing everything up."

"I pushed you away," I say.

"No," Peeta says forcefully, "my own insecurities pushed me away."

I shake my head. It amazes me sometimes the lengths Peeta will go to to avoid placing blame on me, where it belongs. "I pushed you away, Peeta. I let you believe one lie after another, and I pushed you away."

Peeta only tightens his hold on me. "I thought we went over this on the train, remember? Nothing that happened in the Capitol is your fault. And you didn't push me away and you didn't let me believe anything. You stopped me and wouldn't let me walk away and made me listen until we had both explained things to each other. That's what you did. Just like in the arena, I tried to give up but you wouldn't let me. I'd have to be twelve times the idiot that I am to walk away from you after all of that."

"Losing people is all I've ever known," I say after a moment. Part of me is still surprised that I'm talking at all, that somehow I'm baring my soul to this boy who I spoke with for the first time only two months ago. But I already know the awful consequences of keeping secrets from him, and I'm not willing to risk it again. So I go ahead and bare my soul to my boy with the bread. "My father was my whole world, and I lost him. My mother was all I had left, and for all intents and purposes I lost her too. I dedicated my whole life to protecting Prim, and then watched her get reaped. My closest friend just walked out on me because he wants more from me than I'm willing to give him. And I almost lost the only man I've ever loved because I made him think it wasn't real."

Peeta hugs me close once again. "As usual, you don't give yourself nearly enough credit. I know losing your father was horrible, I can't even imagine what that must be like, but look at what you've done since then. You're so incredibly strong and brave I can't even express it." I want to respond, to protest, but the comfort of Peeta's embrace is too tempting, and instead I find myself staying silent and trying to pull myself even closer to him as he continues speaking. "Instead of thinking about everything you've lost, think about what you still have. Your mother was gone for a while, but look at her now, she's in there discussing skin salves with Hazelle and talking to my father about the old days, and I know she still cares about you even if she doesn't quite know how to show it. Prim is perfectly safe, thanks to you, you saved her from starvation and you practically raised her yourself and you saved her again at the reaping. Gale might need some time to cool down, but he'll come around. And you're not getting rid of me that easily, I'm staying right by your side until you tell me not to."

"That will never happen," I tell him emphatically.

"Then I'll always stay with you."

I finally work up the courage to turn and face him. His eyes are brimming with too many emotions to count: love, sorrow, concern, hope, but above all, a deep and abiding sincerity. I wonder how I ever doubted him during the Games; as smoothly as he charms strangers and audiences, when he turns those blue eyes on me I can see nothing but honesty in them. It's not that I can see in his eyes when he's lying to me; rather, I can see in his eyes that he never would. I pull him down towards me and capture his lips in a searing kiss. When we separate, I look straight into his eyes, once again overwhelmed by the depth of emotion shining from those blue orbs. "I love you. Don't ever leave me."

He looks straight back at me, and though I can see that a million different responses are on the tip of his tongue, he tells me exactly what I need to hear right now. "I love you. I'll never leave you."

We share more kisses as I gradually melt into Peeta's embrace. As someone wholly inexperienced with kissing until recently, I'm fascinated by the range of different kisses we can share. Some are fiery and passionate, some are desperate and needy, some are soft and gentle. But whether it's a kiss that leaves my lips bruised or a kiss so soft I can barely feel it, every one clearly communicates how much we love each other, how much we need each other, and every one leaves me wanting more. What form that more will take I'm not quite ready to explore yet, but I know we can both feel it coming.

Eventually I give Peeta one last peck, and rest my head back on his shoulder. He leans his head over against the top of mine and we settle in together. We sit like that for a long time, interrupted only when Peeta kisses my head again or I try to snuggle up a bit closer to him, the two of us enjoying the comfortable silence and sharing the peaceful night.

I can't help but try to soak up this feeling, this comfortable, relaxed togetherness. After so long spent either trying way too hard or being forcibly separated, sitting here, leaning on each other, holding each other, just _being_ with each other, feels like a stolen luxury.

"This is nice," I finally say after a long while. "Just… being with you. For real. I missed you."

Peeta kisses my head again. "I missed you too," he whispers into my hair. I snuggle a little closer to him.

Eventually we're interrupted by the sound of the door opening. I look up to see my mother looking down at us, a look of concern on her face. Can she tell somehow that we were sucking each other's faces off earlier? Are we that obvious? "We're getting ready for dessert, the Mellarks brought a cake," she says.

"Okay, we'll be right there," I say. She looks like she wants to say more but she simply goes back inside, Peeta and I following a moment later. Everybody looks at us expectantly when we re-enter the room. I wish I knew how long we'd been gone. "Um, sorry, about disappearing like that," I stammer out. Then I see Hazelle looking at me. "Gale decided to leave-" I stop abruptly when I realize I have nothing else to add to that.

Luckily, Hazelle just smiles and nods her head. "It's okay, dear. I thought that might happen." She doesn't elaborate. I want to talk to her further, but not in front of everybody, so I just sit quietly as my mother and Peeta's father serve cake. The jovial mood from earlier in the evening has been lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's the big Gale showdown. Or is it only the first big Gale showdown? We shall see!
> 
> I'm trying very hard with this story not to fall into the trap of writing Gale as simply the Everlark antagonist. I'm not sure how successful I'll be, because there are certain roles I need him to fill as the story goes on, but hopefully I'll manage to avoid making him a moustache-twirling villain on the level of Snow or Coin.
> 
> Next chapter: Fighting the nightmares, and an awkward breakfast.
> 
> Preview quote from Chapter 3:
> 
>  
> 
> _"Have you given any thought to… precautions?"_


	3. Nightmares

_I break into the clearing and Rue is lying there, trapped in a net, a spear buried deep in her gut. The gore around the wound makes me want to vomit, but when she speaks her voice is surprisingly soft._

_“Why did you let me die?” Rue asks me. “I trusted you. Why didn’t you protect me? Why did you abandon me?”_

_I want to respond to her, I want to tell her I tried my best, I want to tell her how sorry I am, but words don’t form in my throat. I just stand there silently as sweet little Rue continues to upbraid me for her death._

_“You left me. You let me die. You get banquets and dinners and awards and one of the biggest houses in District 12 and more money than any five merchants and it’s all because you let me die. You let me die. You let me die. You let me die. You let me die…”_

_And suddenly it’s not sweet little Rue laying in that net anymore, now it’s a wolf-like mutt with dark fur and Rue’s big, brown eyes, standing almost upright on its powerful hind legs, and somehow it’s still repeating “You let me die, you let me die, you let me die…” as it angrily tears through the netting and leaps at me, and still all I can do is stand silent as the mass of angry teeth and razor claws descends upon me--_

I jerk awake screaming. It doesn’t take me long to quiet the scream, it seems I’ve even managed to avoid waking Mom or Prim this time, but I sit up in bed gasping for breath for several minutes.

A part of me wants to blame my dream about Rue on Mr. Mellark bringing her up at dinner, but I know the nightmare would have come anyway, whether it involved Rue or not. I dread the night now. Ever since the Games, every night brings nightmares. Sometimes they’re about people I watched die, or other horrors I witnessed. Sometimes they’re about me dying in the arena. Sometimes they’re about Peeta dying. 

_Peeta._

I look out my bedroom window, and I can see that Peeta’s light is on. I know he gets nightmares as well, we managed to exchange that information in one of the quick conversations we managed to sneak in between camera shots. Does he dream the same things I do? Do his dreams bother him as badly as mine bother me?

Since I don’t dare go back to sleep anyway, I throw the covers off and head downstairs. Before I’m even aware that I’ve made the decision my feet have already carried me half-way to Peeta’s house. The very first night without Effie and I’m already sneaking out. I didn’t even bother with a jacket or shoes, I’m just standing on the side of the road in my nightgown. This doesn’t overly concern me, though, since there are only five people living in Victor’s Village and we’re all family.

When I get to Peeta’s door I can hear movement inside, he’s obviously awake and doing something. I knock on the door. “Peeta,” I call quietly, “It’s me.” 

It takes a few moments for Peeta to open the door. He’s dressed only in sleep pants and he has flour on his hands from whatever he’s been baking. It’s the first time I’ve seen him shirtless when he wasn’t starving and half dead. I’m sure there are other boys in the district who are stronger, who have more defined muscles, who are taller, but something about Peeta is just perfect to me. He’s breathtaking, for want of a better term.

“I’ve always liked this dream,” he says as he smiles and gestures me inside, bringing me back to reality.

“What dream is that?” I ask, entering.

“The one where you show up at my house in the middle of the night without any clothes,” he answers smoothly.

“Mmm, sounds nice,” I agree. What the hell? Am I _flirting?_ First kissing, now flirting? I don’t flirt. But then again, I don’t date either, but here I am sneaking out in the middle of the night to meet up with the boy I love. Who’s shirtless. And _gorgeous_. 

I really need to get my mind settled. “Much nicer than the dream that sent me over here,” I say. “I’m guessing it’s much nicer than the dream that has you up baking in the middle of the night, too.”

He lets his smile fall. “Yeah,” he says. “So what can I do for you?”

“I saw your light was on so I just came over,” I say. “I figured it was better than sitting alone afraid to go back to sleep.”

“You’d rather sit at my house afraid to go back to sleep?” Peeta asks.

“Absolutely,” I answer sincerely. 

Peeta smiles and leads me into the kitchen. “Well, if you plan on being hungry later, I’ll have rolls in about an hour.”

“I’ll try to work it into my schedule,” I say, smiling again despite myself. I swear, the effect this boy has on me…

Time passes easily with Peeta. We talk, still getting used to the idea that we can just sit together and speak privately whenever we want to. We kiss, though neither of us seems quite willing to go much beyond that. We stare at each other and time disappears, until the kitchen timer interrupts us. Peeta bakes. I eat. Soon it’s hours later, we’re both yawning again and the sun still isn’t even thinking of peeking over the horizon yet.

“I suppose we’ll have to go back to sleep at some point,” I say around another yawn.

Peeta stands. “Come on, I’ll walk you home.”

I don’t know if this is a new realization or if I’ve suddenly found the reason I came over here in the first place, but as soon as Peeta mentions it, the idea of leaving and facing the rest of the night alone is unthinkable. “Actually, do you think I could just stay here?”

“Of course you can stay here if you want,” Peeta says with a bemused look. “You know how many extra rooms these houses have.”

“Peeta, I wasn’t asking to sleep in a guest room,” I say. I stand to face him, but then falter, suddenly nervous. “Do you really want to sleep alone tonight?”

“No,” Peeta says. His face is tight, all signs of amusement gone. “I… No.”

I finally close the step between us and lean up to give him a soft kiss. “Let’s go to bed, Peeta.”

He reaches out and takes my hand in his. We look into each other’s eyes for just another moment before heading for the stairs. We’ll face the nightmares the same way we ultimately faced their cause.

Together. 

…..

I wake with a start. Where am I? Am I in the arena? No, this is a bed, but it’s not my bedroom. It looks eerily similar to it, though. Is someone trying to trick me? 

It’s then that I realize that I’m being restrained. I pull against the restraints, only to discover I’m being held in place not by something, but by someone. Someone with strong, powerful arms is trying to corral my movements, making me struggle all the harder. I have to break free, I have to run away, I have to find Peeta.

_Peeta!_ My body freezes in the sudden onrush of last night’s memories. It’s only then that I hear the voice that I realize has been trying to break through my panic for a while. “Shhh, it’s okay, you’re safe, it’s not real, it’s just a dream, you’re not in danger…”

Finally my whole body goes limp. I turn around to face Peeta and cling to him desperately. I let no tears flow, though I feel almost like I’m sobbing. We stay like this for several minutes.

“Another nightmare?” Peeta asks once I’ve calmed.

“No. I just… I woke up and I didn’t know where I was, for a moment.” I take several deep breaths to try to steady myself. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

“Actually, I was already up for a few minutes. I was contemplating how to get up without disturbing you.”

Eventually my nerves settle and we fall into a comfortable silence. Neither of us makes any attempt to leave, we simply lay there and hold each other. Eventually we begin exchanging the occasional soft kiss or murmur of affection. I can feel myself relaxing, truly relaxing, in some ways for the first time since Reaping Day. I feel so comfortable here with Peeta. Peaceful. Content. Such a contrast to the exaggerated public displays we’ve been putting on for the last month. _I need more of this in my life_ , I think.

Eventually we’re interrupted by an insistent knocking on his front door. We both look at each other questioningly.

“Expecting anyone?” I ask.

“No, not at this hour,” he says. 

“It can't be Effie, she went home yesterday,” I offer.

“It’s not Haymitch, he wouldn’t be knocking,” Peeta says.

“Or awake, this early in his hangover,” I say.

“Maybe he’s not hungover yet. Maybe he’s still just drunk,” Peeta suggests.

“He still wouldn’t be knocking,” I say.

It’s clear neither one of us wants to get out of bed. Finally I say, “It’s your house, you go answer it.” Peeta gives me a look, so I add, “I didn’t bring any clothes over here, all I have is my nightgown.” Unable to argue with this, Peeta reluctantly gets out of bed, throws on a shirt to go with his sleep pants, and goes to answer the door. I try to listen, curious as to who it could be.

“Peeta!” I recognize Prim’s voice immediately. I also recognize the panic that fills it. Did something happen to Mom? To Gale? I jump out of bed and start racing down the stairs as I hear her continue. “Peeta, have you seen Katniss? We got up this morning and she was gone! I don’t think she went hunting, none of her hunting clothes are missing. I don’t think _any_ of her clothes are missing, at least not anything she would wear willingly. It’s been hours and there’s no sign of her. We don’t know what could have happened to her!”

Oh no. This is going to be awkward. It would be better if I at least had clothes to wear. For a moment I consider hiding upstairs, but then I decide I can’t just leave Peeta in that position, so I go the rest of the way downstairs and walk over towards the door. Prim doesn’t notice me for a moment as she’s still animatedly explaining my disappearance to Peeta, but then she stops dead in the middle of a sentence with her mouth hanging open. I’m not sure what to say, so I start with “Hey, little duck.” Getting no response, I continue, “I couldn’t sleep, so I came over here to spend the night.” Now she’s glaring at me, like she’s my 12-year-old mother. “Just to spend the night! Nothing else happened!” 

Prim is still glaring at me. Finally Peeta breaks the silence. “Prim, Katniss didn’t bring any clothes over here with her last night. You think you could go get her something to wear?” This does nothing to tame the glare she’s giving me, but she nods and leaves. Peeta closes the door. “Well. That went well.”

“I’m sorry I left you in the lurch like that. I didn’t realize they’d react so strongly.”

“It’s okay. It’s your first night not under surveillance and you vanished overnight. If I didn’t know where you were I’d be concerned too.”

“I’m always concerned when I don’t know where you are,” I find myself saying before I can stop myself, giving voice to the anxiety I’ve been feeling ever since we got out of the arena. The panic I felt when Peeta disappeared in the woods, when we were separated on the hovercraft, I feel a milder version of it all the time now, every second I’m not with him. As if a pack of mutts might burst in while his prep team is dressing him, or Cato might be waiting for him in the pantry. I’m sure it helps fuel my nightmares. 

I expect Peeta to chuckle at my admission, or gently tease me for my overprotectiveness. But when I look to Peeta’s eyes, instead of mirth I see recognition as he quietly says, “Me, too.”

I don’t really have anything else to say to that, so I wrap my arms around him and give him a long kiss. I realize that one reason why moments like laying in bed this morning, like sitting on the porch last night, like standing here holding each other in the entrance hall, one reason why they’re so calm and peaceful is because in that moment I know exactly where Peeta is. I know that he’s safe. And apparently Peeta feels the same way about me. _All the more reason why we should spend more time together._

Finally Peeta says, “Why don’t you go back upstairs and grab a shower, I’ll start breakfast and leave your clothes in my room when Prim gets back.” 

“Okay,” I say, and give him one more quick kiss before heading back upstairs.

Showers are the one Capitolized luxury of our Victor’s Village homes that I have unabashedly embraced. Bathing in the Seam meant boiling water on the stove, the bucket of boiling water added to the tub of cold to provide a lukewarm bath. I never could have imagined how soothing it is to stand under unending streams of hot water pouring over me. These houses may be too big, the furniture too fancy, the decoration too extravagant, and nine of them stand immaculate and empty while only a few miles away Seam families struggle to feed themselves and heat their homes. But I make no apologies for how much I enjoy the showers. 

After my shower I can hear Prim and Peeta speaking downstairs. I see Prim has brought me an outfit from my Capitol-supplied wardrobe: a flower-printed dress of the type I used to mock girls from town for wearing, and shoes that came from a factory in Eight instead of from the Cartwright’s shop or a trader at the Hob. Nothing as fancy as what I had to wear to the Victory events, but still more than I would normally wear myself. I can only assume that my mother had a hand in choosing this outfit; she had had a talk with me the other day about how I now had a status to live up to and should dress appropriately, which apparently to her meant dumping my father’s leather jacket and my comfortable, worn-in boots in favor of new, fancy garments from the Capitol. She had left the room before I could counter that I was a Victor because I killed children, not because of how I dressed.

Sure enough, after I dress and go down to the kitchen, I find Peeta having breakfast with not just Prim, but also my mother. I hadn’t heard her speaking at all before I came down. They all look up when I enter the room, but no one says anything until Peeta cuts the tension with, “Honey, we have guests!” Between the merriment in Peeta’s eyes and the sharp look he gets from my mother, it takes everything I have to keep from bursting out laughing myself. I give him a peck on the cheek as I sit down next to him.

“So,” my mother starts, “You spent the night here last night?”

“Yeah,” I answer, “I’m sorry I worried you. I couldn’t sleep. You know how I get nightmares now. We both do. I could see that Peeta was up too, so I just came over.” I pause and eat my food for a few minutes. My mother looks like she’s struggling to phrase her next question, and I speak before she does. “Actually, I’m thinking I’ll just sleep over here from now on.”

Peeta hides his shock at my declaration admirably well. Still, I think Prim can tell it came out of the blue for him. My mother is oblivious, as she gulps down her mouthful of food like she was about to choke on it. But when she speaks, she’s remarkably subdued. “Do you really think that’s… appropriate?”

“I think it’s the only way either of us can get a decent night’s sleep,” I say. And since I really don’t want to have a long discussion about it, I toss in, “As coping mechanisms go, I’d rank it ahead of Haymitch’s drinking.”

My mother looks at me for almost a full minute. “Prim says you told her that all you did here last night was sleep.”

I can’t believe I’m having this conversation. And I can’t believe I’m having this conversation in front of Peeta. And Prim! But I don’t want to let my mother know I’m embarrassed. The whole point of this is to get her to see me as capable of making my own life decisions, not a timid little girl. So I try to remain casual. “Well, that’s not _all_ we did,” I say. I can see her eyes widen before I continue. “We talked for a while, we ate, Peeta made rolls. But you’re not asking about any of that, are you?”

She pauses for a moment, clearly choosing her words carefully. “Is sleeping all you plan to do in the future?”

Hopefully Peeta can continue his straight-faced routine for the rest of the meal. “No, not really.”

I think Peeta’s caught on to my strategy because he’s having a far easier time not reacting to me now. Prim, on the other hand, is blushing furiously, and my mother looks like her eyes are about to bug out of her head. I finish my bite of food and continue. “I’m not saying anything’s going to happen the second we finish cleaning the breakfast dishes or anything. We’re not trying to rush into anything just for the sake of rushing it. But we’re also not going to delay anything just for the sake of delaying it. If something happens, it happens.”

“Don’t you think you’re a bit young for all of this?” my mother asks. She thinks I’m too young to have a relationship with Peeta, of course she thinks I’m too young to move in with him. But she doesn’t have Effie and her army of Capitolites to enforce her whims anymore.

“Not anymore,” I say, my implication clear.

My mother’s still not buying it, though. “Just because you won the Hunger Games doesn’t mean you’re grown up,” she says.

I sort of hate to do this to her, but I have to drive the point home. “I disagree. I think I’m plenty grown enough to start living my life.” I pause for a moment but continue before she can interrupt. “Do you realize I’ve killed four people?” I can hear a little gasp from Prim, but I’m focused on my mother. “Four people are dead because I killed them. I dropped a tracker jacker nest on the Careers’ campsite, waited for two of them to be stung so many times that they died, then went back and pried the weapons from their stiff, dead fingers. I shot a boy from District One whose name I don’t even know, killed him as easily as I would a rabbit in the woods. With the bow I pried from the stiff, dead fingers of his district partner. Then I shot that boy Cato, I shot him and left him to be mutilated by a herd of mutts. I spent an entire night listening to his screams of agony and the sounds of his flesh being torn from his body, before I finally killed him as a mercy, because somehow after all of that he still wasn’t dead. That’s four people who are dead by my hand. Clearly I’m not too young to kill. How can you sit there and tell me I’m too young to love?”

My mother says nothing for a while. She looks like she’s going to be sick. Hearing a short description of one tiny bit of the horror I’ve lived through is enough to make any sane person sick. Finally, in what I’m taking as a victory in this battle of wills, she asks, “Have you given any thought to… precautions?”

It’s amusing to me how uncomfortable my mother seems when she asks this, considering she’s a healer. “They gave us shots before the Games. Neither one of us is having kids for the next five years.”

The table is quiet as we all return to eating. Finally my mother says, “Katniss, you know I only want what’s best for you.”

_Where was this whole ‘wanting what’s best for me’ attitude when I was eleven and starving?_ I want to ask her, but this isn’t really the time to bring that up again. “I know that,” I tell her instead. “And I appreciate that, I do. But I’m not a little girl anymore. I’m sorry for upsetting you before, but that was my life. And believe me, living it was much more upsetting. I know I’m only sixteen, but I have lived through things that only two other people in this District can even imagine. I’ve fought for my life, and not as a metaphor like fighting an illness or fighting starvation, but literally fighting against a trained killer bent on killing me. I’ve fought for my life, and I’ve fought for Peeta’s life. I’ve watched people die by my hand. I watched a little girl die in my arms because I failed to protect her and she reminded me so much of Prim that it hurt to look at her. I watched a girl smile at me as she prepared to carve me up like a dead squirrel, then get her head crushed by a rock. And now, after all of that, I’m home, and I get to live, and I’m not going to put any part of my life on hold just because you think my age hasn’t reached a high enough number.”

No one says anything. I’ve probably gone too far, I know. Nobody can really understand the effect of the Games who wasn’t in them. That’s what I was just saying to Gale last night. But I at least need my mother to understand that she doesn’t understand.

Whether she does or she doesn’t, she seems to have given up on the argument, as we eat the rest of our meal in silence.

…..

“Marvel.”

Mom and Prim have gone home. Even after they left, the tense atmosphere remained. I expected that Peeta would want to have some sort of discussion about my inviting myself to move into his house. I didn’t think Peeta would reject the idea, exactly, but I still thought he wouldn’t be thrilled about my announcing it to my mother without even discussing it with him first. I did regret springing it on him like that, it felt a little too close to how he ambushed me with his declaration of love in front of all of Panem. But somehow neither of us can find words to speak, and the heavy silence that had drowned the end of breakfast remains around us. Peeta and I have been silently cleaning up after breakfast for about ten minutes when, without even pausing what he’s doing or looking up at me, he speaks this single word. I stare at him for a moment, almost too confused to form a response. “What?” I finally ask him.

Peeta looks up to stare out the window, but still doesn’t look at me. “The boy from District One. The one who killed Rue. His name was Marvel.”

“Oh.” Of course Peeta would know this, he spent days with the Career pack. He might have known Marvel pretty well. Shared meals with him. Slept next to him. Traded watch shifts with him. Chatted around the campfire. Shared stories of home. Dreams of what they’d do if they won. Marvel was his ally in the arena before I was. It’s a testament to how little we discuss the Games that I could still not know his name.

“What about the District Four girl?” I ask after a while.

“Tanyah,” Peeta answers quietly.

Marvel and Tanyah. It had never occurred to me that I didn’t even know the names of half of the people I killed in the arena. But now I do. Now I know the names of Marvel and Tanyah. What I don’t know is if knowing their names makes me feel better, or worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Katniss’s relationship with her mother in this story is very interesting to me. I didn’t plan at all for it to take the direction it did. Much like Gale I sometimes fear that I’ve reduced her to just another Everlark antagonist, or even worse the same misunderstanding parent figure that appears in nearly every story about teenagers. But when I took the description from Catching Fire of how she started taking care of Katniss after the Games, and added in the increased emotional maturity and independence that Katniss has in this AU, what I ended up with was this conflict. 
> 
> On a more personal note, I really want to thank everybody for the support and appreciation this story has gotten so far. This story is kind of my baby, it’s the first piece of HG fanfic I ever wrote, the first HG story I wanted to tell, so it’s great to see so many people enjoying it. I just hope you don’t all hate me when I get to the end of what I have written so far and update times become subject to the whims of me finding time to write! :)
> 
> Next chapter: Moving day! Complete with sexual objectification, more mother-daughter conflict, and cookies.
> 
> Preview quote from Chapter 4:
> 
> _“Both of you stop talking about my ass!”_


	4. Moving Day

It's almost an hour later when Peeta and I go over to my house – well, I guess my old house, now. When we walk in, Prim is sitting alone on a couch, playing with Buttercup. She looks up as we enter. The cat just hisses at me and scampers off to some other part of the house. "Mom's upstairs in her room," Prim says flatly. "I don't think she's too happy with you."

It's weird seeing Prim so glum. I must have really upset her this morning. I need to talk to her, but first I need to cheer her up. "Well, I'm not too happy with her either," I say. "Look at what she gave me to wear!" I do a quick spin as if I were with Cinna, and manage to drag a small laugh out of Prim.

"I know you don't like dresses, but they really do look beautiful on you," Prim says.

"But they're so impractical!" I can't even imagine trying to go to the woods dressed like this. Knowing I'll get no support from Prim, I turn to Peeta. "What do you think?"

Peeta looks like I imagine I did during my first interview with Caesar Flickerman, stunned and frightened. "What?" he asks dumbly.

"You spend enough time looking at me," I reason. "Do you think I look better in pants or in dresses?"

Peeta still looks stupefied. Prim starts smiling and avoiding my looks. Is there something here that I'm missing?

Finally Peeta says, "I think you look beautiful in anything you wear."

This answer seems to please Prim greatly, but I just roll my eyes. "Come on, you must have a preference?"

"Well…" Peeta doesn't look dumbstruck by the question anymore, but something is still holding him back from answering. "Do you really want to talk about this in front of Prim?" he says as a blush begins to tint his cheeks.

"You're not going to hurt her feelings if you disagree with her," I say. "Come on. Spit it out, Mellark!"

"Um…" Peeta looks away at a wall, and speaks quietly and quickly. "Um, I like the way you look in pants, because pants follow the contours of your body and really show off the curves of your hips and ass."

The room is completely silent for a long moment. I realize my jaw is hanging open and struggle to close it. Of all the aspects of suddenly being in a relationship that are completely new to me, I never saw this one coming. I've been called beautiful before – by Prim, by Cinna, by Peeta. But Peeta is describing my body as if he thinks it's… I don't even know. Attractive? Desirable? _Sexy?_ I've never been any of those things, and I'm pretty sure no one has ever thought of me as any of those things. My body is small, lean, and straight, made so by years of working hard in the woods and not eating enough. I don't have much in the way of womanly curves, not compared to the well-fed girls from town, and the third- and fourth-hand mended and patched clothing I normally wear hardly serves to accentuate them.

Peeta is looking back at me now, with a small hint of a grin on his face. It's half smug, half apologetic. It's the kind of look he gives me when he can tell I don't believe one of his compliments. I've never handled compliments well, but when someone compliments my shooting or my plant knowledge I can usually muster a grudging acknowledgement. But Peeta compliments me for things I know aren't true. I can deal with it when he calls me strong, or tough. But what do I do when he calls me beautiful? Or kind? Or attractive? I want to be annoyed by his insincerity, but I know he's being sincere. The conclusion that makes the most sense to me is that Peeta is simply delusional. Why else would he have such a high opinion of me?

Usually this is when Peeta reiterates himself a few times in an attempt to convince me of the truth of his praise, but before he can do that the momentary silence is broken when Prim clamps both hands over her mouth and almost falls off the couch in a fit of giggles. I regain my senses and smack Peeta hard on the arm. "Don't talk like that in front of Prim!"

"I asked you!" Peeta says, stepping back and raising his hands defensively. "I tried to beg off, but you said, _'Spit it out, Mellark!'_ "

I don't quite know what to say to that. Before I can come up with something, Prim says, "You do have a nice ass, Katniss." I turn to look at her, my jaw hanging open. "I think it's all that stalking around the woods," she muses, analyzing me as if I were a patient. "It really works the gluteal muscles."

"Well whatever she's doing, it's working," Peeta chimes in with a smirk.

I try to smack Peeta's arm again, but he swats my hand away and takes another step back. "Both of you stop talking about my ass!" I demand.

"Okay, what part of you should we talk about then?" Peeta says with a glint in his eye.

"Don't," I warn him.

"Can we talk about Peeta's ass?" Prim asks, her face full of mischief. "Cause that thing is a freaking work of art!"

I'm choking. I think I'm actually choking. Is my sweet and innocent baby sister… ogling a guy's ass? Isn't she years too young to be doing something like that? Or is it just that I never took notice of things like that until years after I should have? Depressingly enough, I think I know what the answer is.

"Oh really?" Peeta says, having recovered from his shock more quickly than I did. He makes a ridiculous twisting motion, turning back and forth in a comical attempt to look down at his own backside. "A work of art, huh?"

"Oh, yeah," Prim says far too enthusiastically for my liking. "All the girls at school are jealous of Katniss cause she gets to touch it."

I blush and look away, because if Prim sees my reaction, it's far too likely that she'll intuit the reason for it, which would only prolong this conversation when I desperately want it to end. As much as we've let ourselves get lost in kisses lately – last night during dinner, overnight at Peeta's house, this morning when we were supposed to be getting ready to come over here – Peeta and I have not yet arrived at the butt-touching stage of our relationship. Is that something you're supposed to do before you move in together?

"Hear that, Katniss?" Peeta says playfully. "I have hordes of twelve-year-old girls who want to touch my ass."

I lift a threatening finger towards Peeta. "Your ass is _mine_ , Mellark."

Peeta grabs my hand and uses it to pull me towards him as he steps forward, erasing the small distance between us and closing his arms around my waist. "Damn right," he says. "Every other part of me too. I'm yours, Katniss." He leans down and gives me a soft, sweet kiss. I let out a soft sigh and relax into his embrace as my arms find their way around his neck.

I look up into those blue eyes I love so much. "I'm yours, too. You know that, right?" Peeta just smiles and nods at me. I give him another quick peck on the lips and then push away from him. "Good. Now do me a favor and go box up some of those useless Capitol clothes for me while I talk to my sister."

"Sure thing," he says with a lopsided smirk. "Feel free to stare at my ass while I walk away." I just shake my head at his antics before settling on the couch next to Prim.

"You're not going to get mad at me for talking about Peeta like that, are you?" Prim asks.

"No, I'm not mad at you," I say, giving her a small smile. "I'm more worried about you being mad at me."

"For what?" she asks.

"For this morning." Prim looks troubled, but she doesn't deny it. "I know you were a lot more worried than you're trying to let on. I'm sorry I did that to you."

"You could have told me that you were going over there," she says, and it completely takes me by surprise. It hadn't even occurred to me that she might think I was keeping secrets from her. "I wouldn't… judge you or anything. I wouldn't tell Mom if you didn't want me to."

"I know you wouldn't, Prim. I know that," I try to reassure her. "I wasn't trying to hide anything from you. I just went over there when I woke up."

"You didn't tell me you were still having nightmares," she says, somehow sounding both concerned and hurt.

Her question surprises me again. Did she think they stopped just because I managed not to wake her and Mom for a few nights? "I have them every night, Prim. I thought you knew that."

"Does Peeta really help you with them?" she asks. She and my mother tried to help me with the nightmares when I first came back, everything from herbs to calm my nerves to spending the night with me like we used to in our old house in the Seam, but nothing did any good. Eventually I made them both stop; I wasn't going to sleep anyway, they may as well get the chance.

"I think he's the only one who can," I say quietly. "He's the only one who was there. When the nightmares were real."

Prim doesn't say anything in response, she just leans forward to hug me, and I don't hesitate to return it. It occurs to me that I may be seeing a lot less of my baby sister now. I take a good look at her as we sit back, suddenly second-guessing myself. "Are you going to be okay, Prim? With me moving out? Cause if you're worried, I can-"

"I'll be fine, Katniss," she cuts me off. "I'll have Mom here. And you're just moving up the street."

"That's right, I'll be just up the street," I say, carefully avoiding any mention of our mother. Prim notices this immediately.

"Mom will take care of me, Katniss," she says. "You never give her enough credit, she's been getting better for a long time now. She didn't go away for even one day while you were gone."

I can't trust my mother, not after the left us to die. But I don't want to fight about it with Prim, so I just make a grunt of acknowledgment rather than say anything. Her soft smile tells me she understands.

"I'll just be right up the street if you need me," I reiterate. "You can come over any time if you want to. Peeta and I are both here for anything you need."

"I know," she says. "Peeta's really nice."

I smile. "He is."

"Do you think you'll marry him?" she asks.

The question brings me up short. My first instinct is to say no. I've never wanted to get married, because marriage leads to children. But that plan also included never falling in love, and I've already broken that vow. And I as good as announced at breakfast today that Peeta and I would be engaging in the activity that actually does lead to children.

"I mean, most people get married when they move in together," Prim continues when I don't reply. She's right, unmarried couples living together is almost unheard of in Twelve. The practice isn't just frowned upon, it's impractical. For the merchants, marriage and children are an investment, insurance that there will be someone to pass on the family business to. And in the Seam, where just feeding yourself is often a struggle, few women are willing to risk pregnancy without a husband committed to support any possible children.

Of course, Peeta and I don't have to worry about those issues. Neither of us will inherit a business, we don't need it with our Victor's winnings and we're not in line for one anyway. One of Peeta's brothers will take over the bakery, and the other will have to find work elsewhere, most likely with his father-in-law. To whatever extent my mother's healing counts as a business, Prim will take that over. And as far as children, I could support a litter on my own with my winnings, even if the idea of Peeta abandoning either me or his child wasn't entirely unthinkable.

If I were willing to consider having children. Which I'm not.

I force the idea of children from my mind, and instead actually think about Prim's question. I'm still resistant to the idea of marrying on a gut level, but all of my reasons for resisting are no longer valid. I was never going to marry because I was never going to fall in love – well, too late for that. I was never going to marry because I was never going to have children – except with the shots they gave us in the Capitol, we're not having children regardless of what we do. By the end of the day I'll be living with a man, with the man I love, sharing my life, sharing his bed. Would being married really change our situation much at that point?

"I don't know," I finally say. "Maybe one day."

"I think you should," she says. "It'd be neat to have Peeta for a brother. I really like him."

"So I heard," I mutter.

Prim looks away in embarrassment, but I can see that she's smiling. "I thought you weren't mad about that."

"I'm not mad, Prim, I promise," I say. "I'm just not used to you being old enough to talk about that stuff."

"I'm _twelve_ , Katniss," she huffs, as if twelve is all grown up. I remember when I was twelve, I was still struggling trying to feed us all and I missed my father terribly and I measured myself against his memory and I couldn't have felt any more alone or any _less_ grown up. But I did all of that for a reason. I did it all for Prim. I did it so Prim could have the luxury of _not_ bearing the burdens of an adult, so she could have the luxury of gossiping about cute boys with her friends and feeling like that made her all grown up.

"Just cause you're _twelve_ now doesn't mean I'm going to start treating you differently, Little Duck." I poke her in the ribs; she laughs and swats my hand away.

"Does that mean we can't talk about Peeta's ass?" she asks mischievously.

Inwardly, I sigh. Prim really is growing up. There isn't any medical treatment that Mom won't let her help out with anymore. She's old enough for the reaping; in fact, she was reaped. And now she's interested in boys, in a more obvious way than just hanging around with Rory Hawthorne. Part of me wants to try to keep her young for as long as possible, but I know what a foolish mistake that would be. Just look at how I react towards my mother when she tries to treat me like I'm younger than I really am. No, Prim is growing up, and if I don't want our close relationship to be left behind as just another relic of her childhood, then I need to do one of the hardest things I've ever had to do for her: I need to let her.

"Well…" I begin with another sigh, "It is quite nice." Prim giggles some more.

…..

An hour later, I'm up in my old room packing up some things. My flowery dress and toe-pinching shoes have been replaced by items of my own clothing I found buried at the back of one closet, some comfortable trousers and an old hunting shirt, and my worn-in boots.

I can't believe how much stuff I have to move now that the Capitol supplied me with a wardrobe. Peeta has just left with another box of clothes to bring to his house – _our house_ – when there's a knock on the door and my mother walks in. It's the first time I've seen her since I came over. "Katniss, can I talk to you for a moment, in private?" she asks, closing the door behind her before I can even answer.

"Sure, Mom," I say, though I'm dreading this conversation. I really don't want to rehash everything we said this morning.

"I know your mind's made up about this, and I'm not here to try to stop you," she says, "but are you really sure this is the right decision for you?"

"Yes, Mom," I say. "I'm sure."

"I'm just… I'm worried about you, Katniss. I-" My mother seems to stumble over her words for a moment, but then soldiers on. "You don't know this, but when I was younger, before I married your father, there was another man I was dating. A merchant's son." _Peeta's father_ , I think, but she doesn't say so. Apparently she wasn't watching the day Peeta told me this story in the cave. That or the Gamemakers decided not to broadcast it. "Our parents thought it was a good match. And he was a good man, who genuinely loved me. He would have made a fine husband and father. We were even discussing marriage. But I didn't really love him. I loved your father. I may have been happy with the merchant, but I would have lost my love. And I let that love make my decision for me. And even after… well, _after_ , I never regretted choosing your father. Because love is the most precious thing there is in this world." She sighs. "I just don't want to see you make the same mistake that I almost made."

In this moment she's so sincere, so open. And for the first time in my life, I understand what she's saying about love. Though I don't want to admit it, I'm even beginning to understand what happened to her after Dad died. I almost want to hug her. "Don't you see, Mom? You have this entire thing backwards. Gale is the man that everyone expects me to wind up with. But Peeta is the man I love. And I'm making the exact same choice you did."

She stares at me for a moment, as if she's looking at me for the first time. I'm almost afraid she's zoned out again when she says, "You know I just want you to be happy."

"I know," I say, smiling a bit. "Peeta makes me happy."

We pack quietly for a few minutes. After closing up one box, Mom turns to me. I pause and look at her, expecting her to say something, but she's silent for a long time. She looks like she's searching for words. "Mom?" I finally prompt her.

She finally begins speaking, but still seems to be unsure as to what to say. "Katniss, I- You know that- Well…" She pauses and closes her eyes for a moment while sighing heavily. When she opens her eyes again, she finally speaks. "Katniss, I know I haven't been much of a mother to you."

"You abandoned us." I don't mean to attack her, but the words tumble from my mouth before I can stop them.

She looks like I just slapped her with my words, but after a moment she just nods. "You're right. I did. I wasn't there for you. And I can't change things now, I can't take back those years when you had to shoulder the burdens of a girl twice your age. But I can be here for you now."

"How are you here for me now?" I can't help but scoff. "You spent years in a grief-stricken stupor because you lost the man you loved, and all you've done since I got home is try to keep me away from the man I love."

Mom looks like I slapped her again. I have a feeling that if we keep talking about this it's a look she'll be wearing for a while. "I didn't realize you felt so strongly about him," she says.

"How would you realize anything, we hadn't even talked yet!" I'm becoming more agitated now. "You had barely said 'Welcome home' before you were telling the whole country you wouldn't allow us to be together. You could have asked me how I felt first! You could have at least met Peeta before you tried to force him out of my life! How did you think you had the first clue what you were doing when you did that?"

My mother sighs. "To be honest, Katniss, I really didn't think this whole thing between you two was… real."

This brings me up short. "What?" I ask dumbly.

"I've never known you to be interested in… boys, or romance," she explains. "And you spent all of your time with Gale, I thought that if you were interested in anyone, it was him. I just assumed that this whole thing with Peeta was some kind of strategy for the Games."

Part of me wants to snap at my mother, because that's what I'm used to doing. She still could have asked me first rather than make assumptions. But she's not entirely wrong; at first it was all about strategy. And if our love was still just an act, if I was looking for an excuse to separate myself from Peeta, I could easily see myself embracing my mother's prohibition. Being thankful for her quick thinking. Holing up in my too-big Victor's house and using my mother's proclamation to shield myself from the boy I was too afraid to love.

"It started out that way. As a strategy, I mean." I'm not entirely sure why I'm explaining this to her. I certainly don't want or need her approval, except that it might be easier if I didn't have to fight with her about this anymore. "I guess it worked a little too well."

Mom considers this for just a moment. "And what happens when the rush of emotion from the Games starts to fade?"

"That's not what this is," I say, the familiar frustration that usually accompanies any prolonged conversation with my mother beginning to build once again.

"How do you know that?" she asks. "I know first love can feel overwhelming-"

"That's not what this is," I say again, my frustration mounting.

"This isn't your first love?" she asks, as if she's making some sort of point. "I know it feels real, but believe me in a few years you'll look back on this and-"

"Stop it," I say angrily, interrupting her patronizing dismissal of my thoughts and feelings. Who exactly is she to think she knows my mind and my heart better than I do? "You don't get to do that. You don't get to stand there and ignore everything I'm trying to tell you. You don't get to act like you know how I feel better than I do. Not when I've done more parenting in the last five years than you have." It's a low blow, and it earns me another of those just-got-slapped looks from my mother, but I'm too angry to care right now, all of my anger and frustration from the past month pouring out into this conversation. "I'm not young anymore, Mom, no matter how often you repeat it. Maybe you were young when you were my age, good for you that you had that luxury. But I haven't been young in a long time. Just because I was eleven when you quit being my mother doesn't mean you can still treat me like I'm eleven now that you've decided to try again."

When I finish my diatribe and see the pain on my mother's face, a part of me feels bad for hurting her like this. She doesn't even try to respond now, apparently as lost for words as I am. Part of me may feel bad, but nothing I'm saying is untrue, and in the end she brought this on herself with her actions. If she wanted to try to be a mother again, she could have done it without being so presumptuous and controlling. She could have simply been happy that I survived and that I found love and not made so many assumptions and not tried to keep me away from Peeta. Then maybe I could be more understanding of her efforts.

There's that word again. _Understanding_. Hadn't I been thinking that all month, that suddenly I was beginning to _understand_ my mother's reaction to my father's death? That I _understood_ what she had been going through? And as I look at her stricken face, the anger starts to seep out of me, and I suddenly feel the need to communicate this. To let her know that, despite everything that I blame her for, despite how I treat her sometimes, I don't hate her. To make her _understand_.

"Look, Mom," I begin, my voice much calmer now, "I don't know what's going to happen here. I get that you want to try to make amends, but the fact is I don't need that kind of mothering right now. I've learned to live without it. I've outgrown it."

Ugh. This is why I don't ever try to make people feel better, because I'm horrible at it. I take a breath and try again. "What happened after Dad died, it is what it is. I'm not saying it was okay and I'm not saying that I'm not still angry about it, but it's done. It's in the past. Nothing can change any of that now. But, we don't need to be trapped by the past."

For the first time in the conversation, my mother's expression improves slightly. I realize that that might be the nicest thing I've said to her in five years. But before either of us can say anything more Peeta opens the door and comes in carrying several empty boxes. "I think we're going to have to turn one of the spare bedrooms into a closet just to hold our two Capitol wardrobes-" he starts to say before finally registering who's in the room. "Oh, hello Mrs. Everdeen." He looks concerned when he finds us here alone, no doubt remembering our tense conversation this morning, but I flash him a smile to let him know everything's okay. Mom tries to smile at him, but doesn't say anything.

"Mom and I were just talking," I say to fill the silence.

"Well, that's good," Peeta says neutrally. He puts the boxes down on the bed and walks over to me. He goes to hug me, and leans his head down to whisper in my ear. "You okay?"

I look up at him as he straightens up and nod. His face visibly relaxes, "Do you want me to leave you two alone?" he asks quietly.

I look back to my mother for a moment. She's studiously ignoring us, staring at the half-full box in front of her. "Yeah, I think that might be best," I say. I gesture to the box Mom and I just filled. "Can you bring this box over? Just give us another ten or fifteen minutes."

"Sure, no problem." He leans in a gives me a quick kiss. "I'll see you later."

"Love you," I say quickly before he turns away.

I don't think I'll ever get tired of seeing the way Peeta's whole face brightens when I tell him I love him. "I love you," he says, and kisses me again before taking the box and leaving.

I look over to Mom to find that she's watching me with a curious expression. I quirk my eyebrows in question and wait for her to say something. "You two look different," she finally says.

"Different how?" I ask her.

"You're acting differently," she says. "You've been home a month and now you're suddenly acting differently."

It takes me a moment to realize what she's saying. "The cameras are gone. We can be ourselves now."

She shakes her head. "This isn't how you've been acting together off-camera this past month."

"We haven't _been_ together off-camera for the past month," I say. "You and Effie made sure of that."

Mom sighs heavily. "Katniss, I was just looking out for what's best for you-"

I don't let her finish. "No, you weren't, Mom. Don't pretend that anything you did was for my benefit."

Mom looks hurt, and again part of me feels bad for making her feel that way. But she needs to see the truth. "Mom, I know you want what's best for me. I completely believe you when you say that. But you need to understand that _you don't know_ what's best for me." Mom gives me a sad look, but I press on. "You haven't been a parent to me for almost five years, you don't know what those years did to me and you don't have the first clue what I went through in the Games. You don't know me, you don't know what I need, you don't know what I want, and you don't know what's best for me. I'm not trying to hurt you by saying that, but it's true, and if you really want to try to rebuild something between us then you're going to have to accept it. Otherwise you're going to keep doing more harm than good."

Mom considers this for a long time. "What do you want from me, Katniss?" she finally asks.

This is a question I hadn't prepared for. What do I want from my mother? "I don't know," I respond. "I've been fending for myself for so long. I don't think I know how to be a daughter any more than you know how to be my mother." I think for a long moment. "Just… Take care of Prim. Be here for her. She needs you, a lot more than I do. And us, we'll just have to figure it out as we go."

We go back to packing for a few minutes before Mom turns to me again. "I do love you, Katniss. I know- I know I've failed you when you needed me, but I do love you, and I do want what's best for you."

"I know, Mom. I love you too." She walks over to embrace me, and I hug her back. As we go back to filling boxes, I continue speaking. "Mom, um, I just wanted to say…" The words that have been forcing themselves out of me all morning suddenly dry up on me. But I know I need to say this now. "Everything that happened, after Dad died, I don't know if I can ever move past that. If you're looking for forgiveness, or absolution, or whatever. I don't think I could ever offer that. But I just wanted to say that, well, I understand."

Mom looks more confused than ever. "You understand?"

I nod. "Well, maybe not fully, but I get it." I think to how I felt for the last month, when I couldn't see Peeta. How I felt in the first days after my father died, before I made myself stop feeling anything because I had to take care of Prim. How I feel in my dreams, when I see Peeta die. I can feel my heart clench just at the thought. "I understand how someone's absence can choke the life out of you. How the world just feels empty and pointless. How the enormity of your loss can blind you to what you still have." I shake my head slightly, trying to clear it of these morbid thoughts. "I can't forgive you for what happened to Prim and me, I don't think I'll ever be able to do that. But I can understand what happened to you."

Mom doesn't reply for a moment. "And what brought on this, 'understanding?'"

"I finally know what it feels like to love someone like that," I tell her quietly.

Neither of us says anything for a moment, and in the silence I can hear the clomping of Peeta's gait as he walks up the stairs. I can't help the slight smile that ticks up the corners of my mouth at the mere thought of seeing Peeta again, even though he was just here ten minutes ago. Mom must see my reaction, because her face softens and she begins to smile as well.

Ever the gentleman, Peeta knocks at the door. I chuckle to myself as I open it for him. "Hey," he says, a huge smile on his face. "You guys okay?"

"Yeah. I think we're good," I say.

"That's good," he says. "Why don't you take a break? There're cookies in the kitchen if you guys want some."

I quirk my eyebrow at him. "Cookies?"

"Yeah, I brought some over with me. Though I'd hurry if you want any." He takes a few steps back towards the staircase and raises his voice to call downstairs. " _Somebody_ came in from feeding her goat and started gobbling them all up, without considering that anyone else might want some!"

Prim's voice comes up from out of sight. "You had some too!"

"I had to make sure they came out okay!" Peeta counters. "That was just quality control!"

Prim makes a noise in reply, but if it was supposed to contain words they were muffled by what I can only assume is the cookie filling her mouth. I can't help but smile at the exchange.

"So," I say, trying to sound serious, "while we've been over here working, you've been making cookies?"

Peeta just grins at me. "Cookies are easy. The dough doesn't need to rise and they only bake for about ten minutes. When you said you needed fifteen minutes, I thought that's the perfect amount of time for some cookies. But, if you have a problem with me stopping to make cookies, you don't have to eat any." He tries to make a serious face to go with the last sentence, but it comes across as more of a pout. He looks so adorable that I just have to pull him into a kiss, both of us grinning.

We take about five steps towards the stairs before I remember my mother is still in the bedroom. I find her sitting on the bed, putting a few small items into a box. "Mom?" I ask. "Are you coming?"

"You two go ahead," she says. "I'll be down in a bit."

I just nod at her, unsure of what to say and not really wanting to analyze her thinking right now. Peeta and I join Prim in the kitchen, where she sits in front of a three-quarters full plate of cookies. "I didn't eat them all!" she protests, even as she holds a half-eaten cookie in her hand. I just smile at her and ruffle her hair.

I sit with the two people I love most in the world and enjoy freshly baked cookies with chilled goat's milk. Prim tells Peeta about how Lady is handling the move to the Victor's Village; apparently she likes the large lawn behind the house. Peeta asks for some cheese the next time Prim makes it; he has an idea to bake the cheese into a pastry bun. He thinks that the tangy, savory cheese will mix well with the slight sweetness of the bun. I'm skeptical, but he's the baker, so I guess I'll wait and see.

At one point I look up and see Mom standing in the doorway watching us with a curiously unreadable expression on her face. Is she glad to see her children smiling and happy? Sad to see a second person now helping to fill the void she left in Prim's life? I don't know. But when she finally sits at the table and Peeta passes her a cookie, she smiles at him. I take it as a good sign.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cheese in a bun? I can't imagine anyone who would enjoy that.
> 
> There's another scene I meant to add to the end of this chapter, but this was getting kind of long and the new scene isn't written yet, so I cut this off here so I could finally update.
> 
> The next chapter just kind of happened, a bit originally meant for the end of this chapter and a bit originally meant for the beginning of the next chapter, a fluffy little interlude from all the family drama, consisting mostly of Katniss and Peeta in bed together.
> 
> Preview quote from Chapter 5:
> 
> _"You're my dream. Always have been. I'm living my dream."_


	5. Growing Together

Once we get back to our house, it doesn't take Peeta and me very long to put my things away. We find places in our room for the few things I want in there, place my few other belongings around the house, and there's plenty of room in the dresser for the small subset of my wardrobe I actually plan on wearing. The rest goes into the closets of the bedroom next to ours, as the closets of our room are already full of Peeta's Capitol clothes. We don't plan on touching either collection until the next time cameras show up.

Between packing and unpacking, I do find some pieces that end up in the dresser instead of the closets. Plain pants and tops without any ornate embellishments. Rugged trousers and shirts I can wear in the woods. Even a few undergarments that seem to be designed with utility in mind instead of display. I appreciate Cinna's efforts to give me at least a few clothes I can actually use.

It's while we're folding clothes and putting them away in the dresser that Peeta stops and sits back so suddenly that I start, as though he's just noticed some danger and I need to be ready to protect him. My eyes quickly scan all of the room's potential entrances before I remind myself that we're not in the Games anymore.

"You know, I think this is the first time we've ever done anything normal together," he says.

"Yeah," I agree after a moment. Our whole relationship has been tainted by the Capitol, our actions planned and orchestrated from the reaping until just yesterday. And coming over here in the middle of the night just to try to survive the terrors in my head, that could hardly be considered normal. But folding clothes? Organizing closets? Placing my things around my new home? It doesn't get much more normal than that. "Nice for a change," I add with a small smile that Peeta doesn't hesitate to return.

Once we're done moving my stuff in, Peeta makes us dinner consisting of a quick bread and some meat from our Capitol ration. I don't like eating the Capitol-supplied meat. Even though it comes from District 10 and not the Capitol itself. And it's not like we'd be allowed to give it to hungry Seam families if we didn't eat it. We've already helped feed everyone with Parcel Day, anyway.

Still, I vow that we won't be eating from our ration anymore once I can get back to the Hob. Peeta just smiles at me from across the table and shakes his head a bit. I find his reaction curious, and look to him for an explanation. "It's nothing. It's just…" He pauses for a moment as he collects his thoughts. "You're always surprising me. Sometimes I feel like I don't know you at all."

I can feel myself scowling at him. "We've certainly been through enough together, we should know a little something about each other by now."

"Well, sure, but we've always been dealing with life and death. We've never had a normal conversation with one another," he says.

I'm starting to see what he means. "So… you want to have a normal conversation?"

"Yeah," he says with a nod. "I mean, wouldn't it be nice to talk about normal things? Isn't it strange that I know you'd risk your life to save mine, but I don't know what your favorite color is?" A smile creeps onto my lips as I answer.

We spend the rest of the evening having a _normal_ conversation, and I learn all sorts of normal things about Peeta, except they're not normal to me because I'm learning more about Peeta. His favorite color is soft orange, like the early sunset before the sky turns deep red. He takes his tea without sugar, despite growing up in the bakery where they always had sugar on hand. He likes to sleep with the windows open, a habit he formed because after working in front of the ovens all day he craved the cool breeze, even in the dead of winter. His favorite time of year is fall, because of the colors, and because the Games are over for another year. When he was very young, his maternal grandmother lived with the family, and unlike her daughter she was very kind and loving towards the three kids.

And I tell him about myself. Not soul-rending confessions that I could never imagine myself making before we met, but simple things that I might otherwise use to deflect from more personal topics, but Peeta listens as intently as if I were divulging my deepest secrets. I tell him my favorite color is green, like the foliage in the woods. I tell him my favorite season is spring, because it means rebirth, and that I've survived another winter. I tell him I never knew any of my grandparents. I tell him about using my father's bow and his leather hunting jacket, how they make me feel like he's still a part of my life. I tell him about how Gale and I met, how it took years for us to trust each other but eventually we became as close as family. I tell him about my failed attempts to teach Prim to hunt, and how secretly I was glad she reacted the way she did, that she kept her natural compassion even despite our desperate circumstances.

It surprises me again how much we seem to already know about each other. Peeta suggests that one of the reasons I loved the lamb stew in the Capitol so much is that, among all the delicious concoctions we were served there, the comparatively simple stew was the closest to something we might have eaten here in Twelve. I point out that Peeta always double-knots his shoelaces; he explains that he once tripped over his laces and ruined an entire tray of cookies he had just finished icing, and after his mother was done punishing him for the infraction he vowed to never make that mistake again. Peeta mentions that I tend to rub a particular spot over my left eyebrow; I explain that when I'm stressed I sometimes get headaches in that spot.

We've finished dinner and moved to a couch in the living room, turned sideways to face one another with our knees touching, when he says something that brings me up short.

"Rye was so worried about his last reaping," he says. "He tried to hide it with that sarcastic attitude of his, but he was terrified. I thought it was funny, considering I had more slips than he did-"

I don't hear the rest of Peeta's story. That sentence won't leave my head, and it takes me several moments to figure out exactly why. "Wait, how could you have more entries than Rye?"

Peeta just looks at me. When the answer finally dawns on me, I gasp loudly. "But- But- Nobody in town takes tesserae!"

"No, nobody in town _will admit_ to taking tesserae," he corrects me. "You know all those shops depend on the Capitol to send them supplies. Rooba doesn't have anything to sell until the delivery from District 10 comes in. The Cartwrights can't make shoes without leather. Remeed's grocery has no stock without the shipment from Eleven. And without grain from District 9, we can't make bread."

"But tesserae grain's no good for the bread you make," I insist, still trying to wrap my brain around the idea that the pampered merchants I've spent my whole life jealous of might have been taking out as much tesserae as I was.

"You'd be surprised," Peeta says. "It won't do for pastries or the finer breads, we save our Capitol ration for that. But if you take tesserae grain and mill it down some more, and doctor the recipe a bit to cover for it, it does serviceably well in heartier breads."

A horrible thought occurs to me. "Heartier breads?" I ask.

"Yeah, something like rye or one of our seed breads-"

I cut Peeta off mid-sentence. "Or one filled with nuts and raisins?"

Peeta's eyebrows shoot up as he realizes what he's accidentally admitted to. I wonder if he'll open up about it, and if I'm ready to open up about it. I've never really discussed this, we barely mentioned it when we talked in the arena.

He lets out a deep breath and his shoulders visibly sag as he begins speaking. "You remember how bad that winter was." I nod at him; I remember struggling through that winter very clearly. "The Capitol had been shorting our deliveries all winter. I wasn't even twelve yet, but my mother has a cousin who works as some minor functionary in the Justice Building. She snuck us in so my mother wouldn't suffer the humiliation of being known to have taken tesserae, and she fudged our paperwork to make it look like I hadn't signed up until the next week, after my birthday." He pauses, lost in thought for a moment. I don't know what to say, so I just wait for him to resume. "That's why we were there so late that night, any why we were alone in the bakery."

"It was that day?" I ask. "I remember smelling the baking bread when I was walking by, it's what attracted me to look in your trash." I feel the twinge of embarrassment I expect at the memory, but it's not as bad as I'd feared. Peeta already knows everything about that night, there's no sense being embarrassed to talk about it with him.

"Yeah. We – well, I – spent the afternoon milling the tesserae grain, and then we started making loaves to sell in the morning." He takes a deep breath and lets it out. "I think maybe that was what gave me the courage to do it. I mean, I think I would have done it anyway, but the fact that it was _my_ grain in that bread... I never stood up to my mother, not before or since, but that night I didn't hesitate to drop those loaves in the fire."

We're quiet for a moment. "I never thanked you for that."

Peeta shakes his head. "That's not why I did it."

"I know," I say softly. I lean forward, reaching out to take his face in my hands, and pull him into a tender kiss. "Thank you," I say quietly once my lips are free.

Peeta smiles softly at me. "You're welcome." When we sit back, our hands find each other across the back of the couch, as if we just need to be touching somehow.

Something Peeta said before starts to bother me. "What did you mean, that's why you were alone?"

"If anyone else had been down in the bakery, they would have known where the grain came from."

I almost can't believe what Peeta is saying. "Your mother brought you to get tesserae... in secret?"

"Only at first," he says. I don't understand why he's trying to make excuses for that awful woman. "My dad blew up when he found out later that night, but by then it was too late. It's not like we could give it back."

If his father was that mad about it, it couldn't have been something that was expected, no matter how common he tried to make it sound earlier. "Your brothers never took any tesserae, did they?"

Peeta tries to keep his face impassive, but I can see when the pain flashes across it. "No."

"Did you ever take any more?"

Peeta shakes his head. "The only thing my mother cared about was her precious reputation. Dad threatened to tell everyone we were taking tesserae if she ever signed me up again. She tried to argue with him, she said it was the one surefire way to get some value out of me." He chokes out a bitter laugh. I squeeze his hand tighter and begin rubbing his knee with my free hand. "I'm not sure if she really believed he would follow through on his threat, but she never took the chance. But of course Dad easily agreed with her that what was done was done, and there was no reason not to take the remaining eleven allotments for that year."

I sigh as my heart breaks once again for everything Peeta has gone through. "I can't believe your mother did that to you."

Again, Peeta tries to defend her. "It's not the worst thing. I'm sure you took every tesserae you could."

"I did that myself. I chose to do that. I would never have let Prim take any."

"Well, congratulations. You're a better mother than mine," he says bitterly.

The sentence hangs between us for a moment. Somehow I can tell Peeta is thinking the same thing I am, so I go ahead and voice it. "Do you want to have kids one day?"

He doesn't respond at first, his gaze drifting as he seems lost in thought. "I did," he finally says. "Before the reaping. I always wanted children. But now..." He shakes his head again. "I'm not sure I could."

"That's how I've always felt," I say. "I couldn't stand to see my child reaped, or starving, or orphaned by some accident. I just couldn't do it. So I swore I would never have children. It was one of the reasons why I never wanted to fall in love or get married.

"Well, at least we're on the same page, then," he says. He smiles at me, but his eyes are as sad as I've ever seen them. And even though I'm glad we agree, even though I'm relieved that this won't become a point of conflict, even though I've never wanted kids anyway, for some reason a part of me is as sad as Peeta looks.

…..

That night, when I wake up panicked and covered in sweat with a scream already growing in my throat, Peeta is there for me. Once his strong arms and gentle kisses have calmed me, we lay quietly together. I cling to him as if he's the only thing anchoring me to reality, and he holds me as if I'm the most precious thing in the world. I'm still too frazzled to go back to sleep and Peeta won't let himself relax until I do. So we lay awake together.

As the minutes pass, I become acutely aware of how close we are. My head is resting on Peeta's upper arm; his hand is gently stroking my hair, which has come loose from its braid. His other arm is curled around my waist, with his hand rubbing small, soothing circles over my lower back. Both of my legs are wrapped around Peeta's good leg, clutching it as if it were a tree branch I was hanging from. Anyone seeing us like this would make a lot of incorrect assumptions about the state of our physical relationship. As Prim had earlier.

"Peeta, did you mean what you said today?" I ask before I can lose my nerve.

"Probably," he says sleepily. I jerk my head back in surprise, drawing a smile and a light chuckle from Peeta as he pulls my head back to him and drops a kiss in my forehead. "I mean, I said a lot of things today. But I don't remember any that I didn't mean. Do you want to be a bit more specific?"

"When you talked about my, um, what you said about me and, um," I stammer out before he stops me. I actually breathe out a sigh of relief when he interrupts me; he must have figured out what I was referring to more from my embarrassment than from anything I managed to say.

"When I said I thought you looked nice in pants because they show off your body?" he asks with a small smile. I nod to him and fight the urge to hide my face in the crook of his shoulder. I'm not sure why I'm so embarrassed by the subject; truthfully I've never given enough thought to my body to be embarrassed by it. I was only ever worried about what i could do, not how I looked. Was I big enough to use my father's full-size bow instead of the smaller one he made for me when I was a child? Was I strong enough to haul my catches to the Hob? Was I quiet enough to approach my prey without scaring it away? But somehow, trying to talk about this with Peeta, I'm nervous. Nervous about what he thinks. Nervous about what he'll say.

Peeta's smile seems somewhat timid as he answers, but his words are as confident as ever. "Of course I meant it. I wouldn't have said it otherwise."

"You really..." My speech falters; I've never really discussed this kind of thing before, let alone discussed it with a boy I'm lying entwined in bed with. "You really think of me... that way?"

"Well, yeah." The way Peeta says that it's like he doesn't understand how I could be asking the question. "I mean, I don't want to come off like some sort of creep," he says, a touch of nervousness tingeing his voice. "But I am a guy, Katniss. At some point between five and sixteen I started thinking about more than just sneaking you a cupcake and finally getting you to talk to me."

"What did you think about?" I ask. I regret the words almost as soon as they leave my mouth, and this time I really do hide my face against his arm.

Even though I can't see Peeta from my hiding place, I can practically feel his gaze intensify in response to my implication. Thankfully before going into detail, he knows me well enough to ask, "Do you really want me to answer that?"

"No," I say quickly, drawing another chuckle out of Peeta. I roll my head around so I can look up at him once again. "This is just so strange to me. I mean, look at me. I'm not worth thinking about like that."

"Don't say that," Peeta says, a surprisingly harsh tone entering his voice. He looks as surprised by his tone as I am, and he takes a deep breath before he continues. "I hate it when you sell yourself short like that."

I don't sell myself short, do I? My denial must show on my face, because as if he can read my thoughts Peeta says, "You do. You did the same thing in the Capitol when you should have been promoting yourself to Haymitch. You're incredible and you don't see it. I just wish you could love yourself as much as I love you."

I can't help but scoff at his sentiment. "I'd be the most conceited bitch in Twelve if I loved myself as much as you love me."

"Well… Okay, maybe, yeah," he admits with a warm smile that I can't help but return. I just can't control my emotions at all around this boy.

"Call me beautiful if you want," I say, knowing I'll never convince him otherwise. "But I'm not… whatever you were thinking this morning."

"And what was I thinking this morning?" he asks. He's trying to sound light and teasing, but I can hear the seriousness in his voice. When I don't answer, he does it for me. "Was I thinking that you're beautiful?" he asks playfully. "Or was I thinking that you're drop-dead gorgeous?" He nuzzles my nose lightly with his own; I smile involuntarily. "Or was I thinking about how sexy you are?" I feel like I should be uncomfortable with Peeta talking about me this way, given how nervous I was just a minute ago, but somehow I'm not. It feels like the most natural thing in the world.

"Maybe I'm just insufferably proud of myself," Peeta continues.

"Oh? And why is that?" I ask playfully.

"Well, look where we are," he says with a gesture towards our intertwined bodies. "We just met two months ago and we're already sleeping together." I shake my head in disapproval but can't help a small laugh at his insinuation. "I think I'm doing pretty well considering I've never had a girlfriend before."

"Yeah, right," I scoff.

"What do you mean, 'Yeah, right'? You don't think this is going pretty well?"

I shake my head at him again. "Peeta, I know you've had girlfriends."

Peeta looks surprised for just a moment before he smirks at me. "And how exactly do you know that? Have you been paying attention to me after all?"

How exactly _did_ I know that? It's hardly the only thing I know about Peeta, either - I think back to all the things I didn't realize I knew about him until I was practically shouting them at Haymitch. "Maybe..." I slowly admit, causing a wide grin to break out on Peeta's face. "Maybe I was trying to figure out why you kept staring at me!" I try, but it doesn't faze him.

"Well, you're wrong," Peeta says. "I've never had a girlfriend."

I sigh. I really don't know why he keeps insisting on this point, and I'm starting to get a bit upset about it. I don't like him lying to me, even if it's about something this inconsequential. "I know for a fact that you dated Rillis Cooper."

Peeta's mouth hangs open in surprise for just a moment before he responds. "I went out with Rillis Cooper one time, because she begged me to take her to the spring festival."

"Peeta, it's okay," I try to reassure him. "I'm not going to be mad because you dated other girls before we even met."

Peeta huffs out a breath. "Katniss, Rillis Cooper is gay."

I can't help the gasp that escapes my lips. Homosexuality is not unheard of in Twelve, but it's definitely discouraged, and nobody speaks of it openly. The Capitol does its best to discourage homosexuality in the districts, because gay couples don't produce offspring who can spend their childhoods in a reaping ball and then grow up to slave away in a Capitol-controlled industry. Gay couples are not allowed to marry, or to officially share a residence. In the town, where marriages are the contacts by which the wealth and privilege of a family business is passed down, homosexuality is as unacceptable as the Capitol wants it to be. Opinions in the Seam vary - some folks could care less, uninterested in anything that doesn't affect how full their bellies are, while others deal with their frustrations in life by bullying people they know the Peacekeepers will never protect. So Town and Seam, gay people do their best to hide. For Rillis Cooper to trust Peeta with a secret like that really says something.

"Her parents don't know, of course," he continues. "She needed a date to the festival to keep them from suspecting anything, and a fake date to get my mother off my back sounded pretty good to me too."

"I didn't know you two were that close," I say.

"We're not," Peeta says. "The whole thing was fake, Katniss. We weren't really dating."

"That's a heck of a secret to share with someone you're not close to."

"Well…" he begins nervously, "She thought it was safe to tell me."

I can tell from his tone of voice that he's still trying to avoid something. "Why?" I ask.

Peeta lets out a sigh before he answers. "Because she thought I was too," he admits. "She noticed that I never dated girls," he adds pointedly, "and she drew the wrong conclusion."

I consider his answer for a moment. "When we talked in the cave, when you told me about the first day of school, you said you noticed other girls."

"Well, sure," he says. "I noticed lots of other girls. I tried like hell to develop a real interest in one of them, because they didn't intimidate me like you did, and I knew they'd be impressed by silly things like iced cookies with their name on them. But it never worked, because none of them could measure up to you."

For just a moment, I'm floored. I don't know why I keep feeling this way, but every time we talk like this, it's like I realize all over again just how much I really mean to Peeta. Sometimes I feel weird about it; Peeta's always meant something to me, ever since he saved my life with the bread, but it was nothing I could ever put a name to. I certainly didn't spend a lot of time thinking about him. But this situation we're in now, where we're both undressed and we're in bed together and we're so close we seem to be trying to envelop one another, Peeta's been thinking about this for _years_.

Suddenly the need to get this right overwhelms me. I know myself. I know I tend to close myself off. I know I push people away. Sometimes it's to protect myself, and sometimes it's just a reflex. Sometimes I just can't help it. But if I ever do that to Peeta, I'm not sure I could ever forgive myself. I love him and I want to protect him from anyone who might hurt him. Even from myself.

But at the same time, I have to reevaluate some assumptions I've been making about Peeta. I've been assuming that he knew what we were doing, that he was vastly more experienced at all of this than I am and that I've been playing catch-up this whole time. But if he's really never dated before…

"So are you saying you've never…" I begin, but nerves kick in again before I can finish my question.

"I've never…?" Peeta asks after a moment.

"You've never… been with anyone?"

Peeta opens his mouth to answer, but then seems to stop himself as he realizes my real meaning. "You mean, have I had sex with anyone?"

I can't look him in the eyes as I nod my confirmation, and bury my face against his shoulder once again. "I'm sorry. You don't have to answer that."

"Don't be sorry," Peeta says. "If we're doing this – if we're living together, if we're sharing a bed, if you're telling your mother 'not yet' – then you have a right to know. I'll tell you anything you want to know, Katniss."

Part of me feels like Peeta doesn't owe me an answer to this question at all, and I'm embarrassed that I even asked it. But I can't deny that I want to know. I know I want to share everything with him; shouldn't that go both ways? So part of me feels entirely justified in asking. But not enough for me to work up the nerve to look up at him.

"But Katniss," he says, "I've been hung up on you since I was five. When exactly was I going to be with anyone else?"

"I don't know," I mumble against his shoulder. "You spent so many years not even talking to me. You could have found yourself some… distractions." I try to keep my voice even, but if I'm being honest with myself – something I've been trying to do more of lately – even the thought of Peeta being with some other girl, even before we properly met, makes my gut twist in unpleasant ways.

"Hey." Peeta nudges me with his nose. "Come on, look at me." When I don't move he places a soft kiss onto my temple and nudges me again. "Please?"

I'm powerless against the pleading tone in his voice. I come out of my hiding place and look back at Peeta, his face writ with concern but his eyes filled with love. "Katniss, you're it for me. It's always been you."

"But-" I begin to protest, but the rest of my sentence gets swallowed when Peeta presses his lips to mine. Immediately our discussion is forgotten, all my nerves and fears melt away, as I once again lose myself in the delicious feeling of Peeta's lips moving against mine.

Too soon Peeta pulls back. I open my eyes to find him staring intently at me. "Katniss, you're the only girl I've ever been in love with. And one day, when we're both ready to take that step, you'll be the only girl I ever make love with." He punctuates his statement with a gentle kiss on my head. "Only you." And one on my cheek. "Always you." And finally he reclaims my lips.

When we break apart this time, I know I have a big, dumb smile on my face, and Peeta returns it. "Are you okay now?" he asks.

I nod my head. "I guess I don't have to be nervous about how new all of this is for me if you've never been with anyone else either."

Peeta's eyes narrow in question. "You mean you've never…?"

The question is so surprising to me that I don't even remember to be embarrassed about answering it. "Before I met you I was dead set against ever being in a relationship. Who would I have had sex with?"

Peeta's eyes dart away; suddenly he can't meet my gaze. "Well…"

I let out a small sigh when I realize what Peeta's thinking. I bring my hand up to his cheek and turn his gaze back to me. "Gale's never been anything more than a friend to me. You know that."

"Yeah, I know," he says, seemingly embarrassed at his own worries.

I decide his own words may be the best thing for him to hear right now. "Peeta, you're the only boy I've ever been in love with. And one day - one day soon at the rate we're going - you'll be the only boy I ever make love with. It's only you, Peeta."

Like Peeta, I punctuate my words with a kiss. And like me, he looks a lot happier when we separate. "I'm sorry. I guess I'm just not used to… not being jealous of Gale."

"You were really jealous of Gale?" I ask.

"So much," Peeta says with an embarrassed little grin. "I was jealous of him before I even officially met you."

"Were you jealous of the friendship we actually have, or the relationship you thought we had?" I ask.

"Honestly, both," Peeta says. "I won't lie and say I'm not happy to hear that you weren't interrupting your hunting trips to have crazy, Capitol porn style outdoor sex marathons." I bite back a smile and shake my head; even in moments like this Peeta can crack a joke and diffuse the nervous tension. "But even aside from that, he got to spend so much time with you. See you smile. Make you laugh. Even being able to look you in the face was something I could only wish for."

"I used to catch you staring at me," I say.

"Only when I chanced a look at your face," he says. "Usually I would only dare to look at you from behind."

I can't help the smirk that grows on my face. "Is that why you're so obsessed with my ass?"

"And your hair," he answers sheepishly. "I used to spend hours thinking about what it would be like to run my fingers through your hair, or how your ass would feel in my hands."

The moment feels right, and I decide to be bold. "Well, you feel my hair every chance you get, but you haven't grabbed my ass once. What gives?"

…..

When I wake up the next morning, I know exactly where I am, and who I'm with, and the thought immediately relaxes me.

I smile when I remember how the night had gone: My nightmare. Our conversation afterwards; somehow every time Peeta and I talk we always manage to grow even closer together. And finally the first tentative touches that had grown into clumsy groping as we began to learn each other's bodies. We didn't go very far last night, we didn't remove any clothes and we still stayed away from certain areas, but we both know where we're headed. And almost despite myself, the idea doesn't scare me at all.

I open my eyes to see Peeta staring back at me with such intense adoration that it makes me want to shrink into the floorboards, and also to fly and soar through the air like a bird. He's tracing his fingertips over the swell of my hip so lightly that I can't even really feel it through the material of my nightgown, except I can feel where his fingertips are by the jolt of electricity they send coursing through me. If I'd known love could feel this good I would have sought it out much sooner. That or run away from it that much harder. Probably both.

I realize Peeta hasn't blinked in the several minutes since I woke up and started looking at him. Then I realize that neither have I. I quickly look away. "You spend an awful lot of time staring at me, Peeta."

"Well, now that I know you won't punch me for it, I'm taking full advantage," he says teasingly. "Plus, I'm trying as hard as I can to memorize every single detail of this moment."

That's something new. "Why this moment?" I ask.

"This is our first morning waking up together," he says.

"No it's not," I say, a bit confused. "I slept here last night, too."

"Yeah, but that was just a one-time thing. This is the first morning of the rest of our lives, and I always want to remember it."

I don't have a coherent response to that, Peeta's always been better with words than I have. So I do what I usually do when Peeta leaves me completely speechless: I kiss him. I try to put all my emotions and all my love for him into the kiss, because I know my words can never express it. Soon we're back to staring at one another, except now we're smiling and out of breath.

"You might as well get used to this," Peeta says. "So much of our relationship happened in the arena, or at the behest of the Capitol. But these moments here at home, these are ours. And I want to savor them. I want to immerse myself in them. I want to remember every last detail of them for the rest of our lives. I'm going to be acting like this for quite a while."

Those damn words of his. "And how exactly are you acting?" I ask, just to hear more of them.

Peeta's smile grows, like he knows exactly why I asked that. "Like a sentimental fool. Like a lovesick boy. Like someone who's living in a dream and doesn't want to wake up."

"What's your dream?" I ask.

"You're my dream. Always have been. I'm living my dream. Katniss Everdeen, sleeping in my bed. Katniss Everdeen, living in my house. Katniss Everdeen, snuggled comfortably in my arms." The way Peeta says my name, it's like I'm some sort of mystical ethereal superbeing. Is just hearing someone say my name supposed to fill me with such warmth? Now Peeta leans down close so he can kiss and nibble at my ear while whispering playfully, "Katniss Everdeen, letting me feel her body. Katniss Everdeen, sitting in my kitchen telling her mother that she plans on making love with me." It's the first time either of us had said it in so many words, and it makes me blush furiously, but I can't keep the wide smile off my face as Peeta leans back and sighs contentedly. "I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now, and live in it forever."

I consider this for a moment. "No, I wouldn't want to do that."

"And why not?" Peeta asks.

"Because we're going to have so many moments together that will be even better," I say, leaning up to kiss him again.

"Sometimes I feel like I'm going to wake up, and I'll still be buried in that riverbed, and this will all have been some fevered fantasy," Peeta says one our lips are free. "Except this is so much better than any fantasy I ever had."

"You know, I was just thinking the same thing earlier," I tell him. Before he can ask for an explanation, we're once again interrupted by someone at the front door, a pounding this time instead of Prim's lighter knocking.

Peeta groans, and moves to get up. "Does this happen every morning at your house?" I ask tiredly, rolling away of him and flopping back down to the bed.

"Only since you started sleeping here," he snarks back at me as he throws some clothes on.

"At least it's not my mother or Prim this time," I offer weakly, still trying to cling to the warmth left where he was lying with me just seconds earlier.

Peeta's already on his way out the door. "From the sound of it, it could be Haymitch. If he ever knocked."

I'm just starting to get out of bed myself when I hear Peeta answer the door.

"Mellark. We need to talk."

"Okay. Come on in, Gale."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... That chapter was pretty much fluff piled on top of fluff piled on top of fluff. But I figure there are enough heartbreaking Everlark stories, this one can be sweet and sappy and fluffy for a while longer. How much longer? This may change because some of this isn’t written yet, but my best estimate at the moment is that I have another five chapters left that will continue in the vein of these first five, exploring Everlark’s new relationship and their new lives, moving Peeta and Katniss into the places I want them to be at the start of Catching Fire. Then the main plot of Catching Fire will enter this story in approximately Chapter 11. 
> 
> Next chapter: What does Gale want? How will Peeta react? What will Katniss do? And what causes one of them to say this: 
> 
> (a line you may recognize from a non-THG franchise)
> 
> Preview quote from Chapter 6:
> 
> _“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”_


	6. Real or Not Real?

_"Mellark. We need to talk."_

_"Okay. Come on in, Gale."_

…..

_Gale? What the hell is Gale doing here?_ My mind is racing through possibilities now. Why did he come here, instead of to my mother's house? Does he know I'm living here now? No, wait, he said he wanted to talk to Peeta. Does he even realize I'm here? Probably not, I think.

But what does he want with Peeta? Of course my first instinct is to protect Peeta from danger. Is he in danger? Would Gale hurt Peeta? He can be hotheaded at times, but when I last spoke to him at our dinner two nights ago, he was more sad than angry. Is that still the case?

Then I realize, today is Sunday. This is usually our biggest hunting day, and it's the first one since the cameras left, and I missed it. Gale's probably just come back from hunting, actually. Probably wondering where I was. _But he didn't come looking for me_ , I remind myself, _he came looking for Peeta._

As quietly as I can I finish getting dressed and creep partway down the stairs, so I can eavesdrop more easily. I briefly wonder if I'm doing something wrong by doing so, but Peeta will probably assume I can overhear anyway, and besides we have no secrets from each other. And Gale… I need to know what he's here for. I settle myself half-way down the stairs, just around the corner from where they sit in the living room, and listen.

"So what can I do for you, Gale?" Peeta asks carefully.

Gale huffs at him. "What can you do for me? There are lots of things I could ask you to do for me. Would you actually be willing to do any of them?"

"I think you'd be surprised what I'd be willing to do," Peeta says calmly. "But I think what you've got on your mind right now is really something you should talk to Katniss about, not me, isn't it?"

They're both quiet for a few moments, before Gale says, "Okay, I'll level with you, Mellark. I need to understand what's going on here. I'm Katniss's friend, even if I'm not anything more than that. I tried to talk to her about it the other night, but we both got angry and then I got frustrated and left. I was going to try again today when we went hunting, she's always more at peace in the woods and with the hunting as a distraction… but she didn't even show up today, so she's more angry at me than I realized. I… I need to know what's going on with her right now. I need to know what she needs from me."

"And you trust me to tell you?" Peeta asks.

"Not really," Gale admits. "I guess I just want to hear what you have to say. Then I can try to figure out how much of it to believe."

Again there's a long silence. "Kind of a waste of my time to try to explain things to you if you're not even going to believe me," Peeta says, followed by another long silence. I wish I could see the looks they're exchanging. Finally Peeta says, "Okay, fine. Ask me what you want, I'll answer as honestly as I can. Just understand, there are some things I won't be able to explain. There are some things you just can't understand without having lived through it."

"She said the same thing the other night," Gale says. "She told me I'd never understand what happened in the Games, because I wasn't in them."

"That's true," Peeta says. "There are some things that she and I can only really discuss with Haymitch, because we're the only three people in District 12 who get it. That's not an insult to you, it's just a… lack of common experience. Like how you and Katniss bonded over both of you hunting to support your families after your fathers died. Could you ever explain that to me? I have no younger siblings, my father is always there, I never went without food for two days in a row until the arena. Can you explain your experience to me so that I understand it as well as you and Katniss understand each other? When you've done that, then I'll explain to you what it's like to be in the Games."

I smile at Peeta using my explanation to him to explain to Gale. He's basically taking my place in this conversation, after all, except with his skill with words he's explaining things far better than I could ever hope to.

After another short silence in which I hope Gale is seriously considering Peeta's words, Gale finally says, "Okay, any other caveats?"

"Just one," Peeta says. "Some things I may refuse to tell you."

"You're not exactly improving your credibility with that one," Gale snarks.

"Whatever," Peeta says dismissively. "I just think there are some things that you really should hear from Katniss, not from me. There are some things it's not my place to tell."

"Okay. That's it?" Gale asks.

"That's it," Peeta says. "What do you want to know?"

Gale exhales loudly. "You and her – Are you really together? Or are you being forced together by the Capitol?"

"We're really together," Peeta says. "Not just because we're being forced." I notice the subtle rephrasing Peeta used there, but Gale seems not to.

"If that's true, then what the hell happened to Katniss?" Gale asks forcefully. "I get that the Games change a person, but she went from a tough-as-nails survivor to a silly girl twirling in her pretty dress! And it happened before she even went into the arena."

"Gale," Peeta says patiently, "understand this: Everything we do on camera is an act. It's an act targeted specifically at the Capitol, to keep them happy, to show them what they want to see. They want to see a fawning, silly girl completely drunk with love, so that's what she shows them. Don't judge her based on what she has to do on camera."

"I thought you just said the relationship was real?" Gale asks angrily. "Now you're saying it's an act?"

"Everything we do on camera is an act," Peeta tries explaining again. "That doesn't mean our relationship isn't real." There's a pause, and then Peeta continues. "Think of it just like all the other shows on television. Think of two actors who are married, who also play a married couple on a television show. You wouldn't judge their real-life marriage based on what their characters do on television, right?"

There's a long pause. I don't know what face Gale is making, but it prompts Peeta to try explaining again. "Okay, try this: Imagine the Capitol finds out about you hunting in the woods, but instead of executing you they decide to make a television show about you. Gale Hawthorne: Bow Hunter. Except they change a few things to make the television show more exciting. Hunting for rabbits and squirrels is boring, so every episode you take down something big like a bear or a cougar. And they give you a different bow and new arrows to use, ones that look more impressive on screen. And when they film you shooting, they make you adjust your stance so that your face is more easily visible. And since they can't talk about starvation, on the show you're hunting for fun rather than for food. Now what happens when this show comes on and someone like Katniss watches it? Katniss immediately says, 'That guy is using the wrong bow, the wrong arrows, the wrong firing stance, hunting the wrong game, and no one from the Seam ever hunts for fun. That Gale Hawthorne is a complete fraud!'"

"Because she's judging me based on the television show," Gale says, but it comes out more like a question than a statement.

"Exactly," Peeta says. "Now, when someone asks you, 'Are you really a bow hunter or is everything on that show just staged to look good on television?' how do you answer that question?"

"It's both," Gale says, a little more sure now.

"Exactly!" Peeta says again, more excitedly this time. "Just because Gale Hawthorne: Bow Hunter is a staged television show doesn't mean you aren't really a hunter in real life. Just like Katniss and I pretending to be in love on television doesn't mean we aren't in love in real life."

I'm amazed by the beauty and simplicity of Peeta's explanation, even as Gale completely dismisses it. "But you and Katniss aren't a television show," he says.

"But we are," Peeta counters. "What are the Hunger Games? For the Capitol, they're entertainment. A television show. And this year they featured the Star Crossed Lovers from District Twelve. Two characters on that television show. And we're still playing those characters. Whenever we're being filmed, any time when we're being observed by the Capitol, we're playing those characters. I play a charming raconteur and Katniss plays a silly twirling girl, and we pretend to be in love. But an amazing thing happened: The actors playing these two characters actually did fall in love. For real. And now that the cameras are gone, we can be ourselves again. Our real selves. You saw us at dinner the other night, that was real. That was the real Katniss and the real Peeta, really in love."

"I don't know what the hell I saw the other night," Gale spits out. "That didn't really look like Katniss either. The whole time I've known her she only ever smiled at me or Prim. Seeing her smiling at you in the Games was shocking to me, but I figured it was an act for the Games. But seeing her laughing and smiling freely with her mother, who she hates? With your family, who she barely knows? With that useless drunk Haymitch Abernathy? I don't know who that was."

"She's still Katniss," Peeta says. "She's just not quite as… bottled up as she was before. She is a bit freer with her emotions, she's a bit freer about admitting when she's happy." Peeta pauses for a moment. "You didn't know her before her father died, she wasn't always so bottled up."

"I didn't know her before her father died?" Gale asks incredulously. "You didn't know her before two months ago!"

"I know her better than you think," Peeta says, and the way he says it makes me believe it. "She was always quiet and serious compared to most of the other kids, but after her father died she shut down in a way. Not like her mother did, but it was like she didn't dare admit to being happy anymore for fear that she would lose it again. After the Games, she had the opposite reaction. She's experienced so much sadness in the last five years that now she tries to cling to happiness so hard that nothing can tear it away from her."

"Sadness…" Gale says. "I've never seen her break down like she did when your father brought up that girl from Eleven. Not even over her father."

The mention of Rue almost brings back the tears again, but I try my best to remain silent. I'm also a bit annoyed at Gale for calling her 'that girl from Eleven,' she was a person with a name and she deserves the dignity of being addressed properly.

Peeta's voice is tight when he responds, Gale's casual dismissal of Rue has obviously bothered him too, but he continues his explanation. "For so long she didn't really let herself feel anything. I guess maybe anger, because it kept her going. But now she's opening herself up to so much more – joy, sorrow. Love. And sometimes it just overwhelms her. She's not used to dealing with it all, because for so long she didn't allow herself to feel those things. She's such a passionate person at heart, when she lets herself feel sometimes it just overwhelms her." Peeta pauses before continuing. "And just so you know, if you ever do talk to Katniss about Rue, just… be careful. You saw how it affects her. Don't call her 'that girl from Eleven.' Katniss was very attached to Rue, and you know how loath Katniss is to become attached to anyone. She may have cared for Rue more than she cares for anyone other than the two of us and Prim, and at the time Rue died I hadn't made that list yet. Rue was probably the biggest loss she's suffered since her father died."

As I'm listening to all of this, as I'm crying over Rue, I'm also amazed again at how well Peeta knows me, how much more insight into my soul he has than I do myself. I've known him for two months, and he knows me better than anyone has since my father. How did I manage to meet two such wonderful people as Peeta and Rue in the middle of the horrible nightmare that is the Hunger Games?

"How did Katniss of all people become that attached to someone she only knew for a few days?" Gale asks, disbelief in his voice.

"Well, first, it was more than just those few days in the arena," Peeta says. "Katniss took note of Rue right from the beginning, on Reaping Day, when we watched the recaps on the train. And Rue used to follow us around during training too, she took a liking to Katniss just like Katniss took a liking to her."

"Why would Katniss do that?" Gale asks.

"Because she reminded her of Prim," Peeta says softly. "She reminded me of Prim as well, though I only really knew Prim from seeing her at the bakery. But this sweet, clever little girl hung around us during training, and for Katniss it was almost like seeing Prim thrown into the Games. And then Rue saved her life, she pointed out the tracker jackers in her tree and she treated her stings. Then they were allies, they got to know each other a bit, they became friends, they plotted and schemed together." Peeta pauses and takes a deep breath. "And then Rue was killed, and Katniss held her and sang to her and watched her die, and she still blames herself for Rue's death. This sweet, clever, brave, dead girl who reminded her of Prim."

Tears are pouring down my face now, and I make no effort to stop them. I lean my head over against the wall and cry quietly. _I'm sorry, Rue. I'm so, so sorry…_

After a long time Gale finally speaks. "I feel like you're telling me about some other person, that my Katniss is gone and now there's this new Katniss that I don't know anything about."

"People change in the Games," Peeta says. When Gale doesn't respond, Peeta continues. "She actually told me something similar the other night, after you two talked."

"She said I don't know her anymore?" Gale asks sadly.

"She said that she was worried about your friendship, because you understood each other so well before, but now she had been through the Games and you hadn't and she was afraid it would create a gulf between you."

"I have to admit," Gale says, "I'm worried about the same thing now."

"Look, Gale," Peeta says, "I know I'm probably the last person you want advice from, but you're the one who came to me so I'm going to offer it anyway. Don't let this come between you. I wasn't exaggerating before about how few people Katniss truly cares about, you know that as well as I do. I mean, there's her mother, but you know how complicated that is. There's Haymitch, but he's… well, he's Haymitch. But really it's just us and Prim. We're the people she loves."

Again Gale doesn't say anything, and again Peeta fills the silence. "If you really love her, I mean if you love her like I love her, and seeing her with me just kills you, and you don't think you can stand it, I get that. I know the feeling, I spent years thinking that the two of you were together and I had missed my chance. So if you just can't stand to be around her watching her love someone else, I understand. But if you can accept her relationship with me and move on; if you can still be her friend, or her brother, or her fake cousin, or whatever you want to describe it as; don't let this come between you. Don't push her away. Because whatever changed about her in the Games, underneath it all she's still just Katniss. And you're still one of the most important people in her world."

There's another long pause. I know Peeta has always seen Gale as competition; just last night we talked about how jealous he was, and after that kiss the other night he has every reason not to trust Gale. Yet he's still sitting there trying to convince Gale not to give up our friendship. He really is the most selfless person I've ever met. I reverse our positions in my head; if some other girl had designs on Peeta, I don't care how uninterested he was there's no way on earth I would ever encourage the two of them to be friends and spend time together. But that's Peeta, always putting my interests ahead of his own.

Finally Gale asks, "So she told you about our conversation the other night?"

"Yes."

"What did she tell you?" Gale asks.

Peeta lets out a breath. "She said you didn't believe her that we're together by choice. She said you told her you loved her, and then left when she didn't feel the same way about you." Peeta pauses for another breath. "She told me you kissed her."

"Did she?" Gale says. "I was wondering if she'd leave that part out."

"We try to be completely honest with each other," Peeta says. "It helps make up for all the lies we have to tell on camera."

"So how do you feel about that?" Gale asks. "That I kissed her?"

"I feel like you shouldn't go around forcing kisses on people who don't want them," Peeta says, his voice hardening. "But you should also understand the danger you would put yourself in if anyone ever saw you doing that."

"Danger?" Gale scoffs. "From who, you?"

"No, not me," Peeta says with a laugh. "From the Capitol. We're everyone's favorite couple right now. Our characters, I mean. The Star Crossed Lovers from the Hunger Games. They won't let anything threaten that image. I mean, that's why they called you her cousin in the first place, because they didn't want anyone to have the idea that Katniss may have feelings for anyone other than me, to the point where they wouldn't even admit that she had a friend who was male. If they see you as a threat to the storybook romance they've scripted for us, they could well decide to… remove the threat."

"See, this is why no one knows what to believe!" Gale says, frustration clear in his voice. "Do you have any idea how confusing it is when you say in one breath that you're not being forced to be together, then in the next that I'd be killed if I threatened your relationship?" he asks.

"You have to separate what's real from what's not real," Peeta says. "Remember when I talked about actors playing characters? The Capitol wants everyone to think our characters are real. So we have to play those characters any time the Capitol is observing us. And if the Capitol observed you kissing Katniss, they would see that as a threat to the characters they've presented to the public."

Another long pause. Then Gale says, "She told me she loves you."

"Yes," Peeta says.

"Was she telling the truth or was she lying because that's what she has to tell people?" Gale asks.

"She was telling the truth," Peeta says.

"What happens if she's wrong?" Gale asks. "What happens if she wakes up one day and realizes she doesn't love you anymore, that she loves someone else?"

"I'm not trying to trap her into anything," Peeta says. "We'd still have to put on the show when there were cameras, but when we're at home we really don't even need to see each other much. Hell, we barely saw each other at all the whole time the Capitol cameras were here. But she and this 'someone else' would have to be very careful. Very discreet. If any whiff of Katniss and I no longer being together made it to the public, then 'someone else' would very likely be very quickly dead, and she and I would have to do something extra special to reassure the public of our undying love."

"Extra special?" Gale asks. "Like what?"

"I don't know," Peeta says. "A televised Capitol wedding? Maybe move to the Capitol so we could be on display full-time?" The ideas Peeta is suggesting make me shudder. I think again about how completely unbearable this whole situation would be without Peeta. I would never be able to handle pretending to love him without his real love to sustain me. I'd crack up, probably end up trying to hide from the world in a closet or something.

There's another long pause before Gale asks, "If she didn't love you, what would you do?"

Peeta takes a moment before answering. "Die a little each day."

_Me, too_ , I think. Gale sputters a bit, seemingly thrown off track by Peeta's answer. "No, no, um… If she came to you and said, 'I don't love you, I love someone else, I want to be with them and I need your help to cover it up from the Capitol,' what would you do?"

"I'd help her," Peeta says without hesitating.

"Why?" asks Gale.

"Because I love her and I want her to be happy."

There's another long pause before Gale says, "I wish I believed everything you were saying." I can hear Peeta laughing lightly at this, and the laughter seems to anger Gale. "What's so funny about that?"

"Katniss thinks I'm such a good liar," Peeta says, "just because I did well in our interviews with Caesar Flickerman. But here I can't even convince you of the honest truth."

Another long pause, then I hear something shifting. Gale says, "I should go talk to Katniss."

"Gale, wait," Peeta says. "Are you going to look for her at her house?"

"Um, yeah. Since she didn't come out hunting and she wasn't at the Hob, she must be home," Gale says.

"She's not there," Peeta says. And then I realize. _Oh, no. I've left Peeta in the lurch again._ I briefly consider walking out from my hiding place now, but that would reveal I'd been eavesdropping this whole time, and I don't want to do that. Can I make it back upstairs silently and then feign waking up and coming down? No, probably not. They would hear me.

In the end I remain motionless as Gale asks, "Where is she, then?"

"This is one of those things you should have heard from her," Peeta says. He takes a breath before continuing. "Katniss is here. She's upstairs asleep. She moved in here yesterday."

"Moved-?" Gale sounds confused.

"We're living together," Peeta explains. "Katniss can give you all the gory details if she wants."

Now I _really_ wish I could see Gale's face. After a few moments he asks, "Are you two…?"

"No," Peeta answers, "not yet."

"'Not yet'?" Gale asks back.

"Not yet," Peeta confirms. "Her words, not mine. And anything more than that you'll have to ask Katniss. Do you want me to go let her know you're here?"

"She's really been upstairs asleep this entire time?" Gale asks.

"Well, either that or she's been sitting on the stairs listening in." Peeta says this jokingly, but I can tell. He knows. Damn, what must he think of me?

"I'll go get her," Peeta says again when Gale doesn't respond.

When I can see Peeta from the stairs I try to look apologetic, but he just smiles at me and puts his finger to his lips to shush me. I use the noise of his clomping up the stairs to mask my own steps as I precede him back to our bedroom.

We both sit down on the bed and Peeta gathers me in his arms. I gratefully nuzzle my head into his chest. Neither of us speaks for a few moments. From the way he looks at me I can tell Peeta knows I've been crying, but he doesn't say anything about it. Instead we just sit together until Peeta finally breaks the silence.

"So," he says, "Gale's here."

"I know," I tell him. "I heard."

"I figured," Peeta says. "I didn't think you'd go back to sleep without coming down to see who was here."

"I'm sorry," I say.

"For what?" Peeta asks.

"For listening in on your conversation," I say.

"Oh, forget it," Peeta says. "The whole conversation was about you, anyway." Then he pauses, and a serious look crosses his face. "I'm sorry if I said anything that upset you."

"I'm fine," I tell him. "What you said about Rue before, that was really beautiful."

Peeta doesn't say anything, he just gives me a kiss on the forehead, and then, as if he just couldn't resist, another on the lips. "Come on, you want to come see him?"

I release a breath. "I suppose I should."

"You don't seem that eager to see your best friend," Peeta says. "You don't have to if you don't want to."

"I'm just so sick of having to justify ourselves to everyone!" I say, suddenly agitated. "It's bad enough having to sell ourselves to the Capitol, but now we have to sell ourselves to Mom and Gale, people who should just be happy for us! Why is your family so much more accepting than mine is?"

"Because my family has known that I'm in love with you for years," Peeta says.

"And I've spent years telling everyone I know that I'll never fall in love and never have a relationship," I say, finishing the sentence Peeta left incomplete.

"Hey," Peeta says, tightening his arms around me, "this isn't your fault, okay? None of this is your fault. People are just… confused. This is a confusing situation. Your mother and Gale, they just care about you. They just want you to be safe. And my family's not all so accepting, don't forget about my mother."

Peeta's line about his mother makes me snort. "I think getting Gale to accept a merchant might be easier than getting your mother to accept a Seam girl."

"Well, at least Gale is willing to talk to me," Peeta says.

I sigh, and reluctantly release myself from Peeta's embrace. "I guess I've stalled long enough, I should go see him now."

"Do you want me to leave you two alone for a while?" Peeta asks.

"No!" I say, a bit too forcefully. "Stay with me."

He smiles, and kisses me again. "Always, my love." And now I'm smiling too. Peeta always manages to lift my mood. Do I want to go meet Gale with this big dumb lovestruck grin on my face? Whether I do or not, I guess I'm about to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been mostly done for a while, but my writing time was taken up with the latest round of Prompts in Panem. If you haven't yet, you should definitely go check out all the awesomeness that was created for PiP, including three new stories by yours truly. (/shameless plug)
> 
> I really want to sincerely thank everyone who's been kind enough to leave a review or a comment about this story. I love that there are folks out there who enjoy reading this story as much as I enjoy writing it.
> 
> Next chapter: A threesome… of conversation! Also, this story quite possibly jumps the shark.
> 
> Preview quote form Chapter 7:
> 
> _"I won't let anything come between us."_


	7. Sundays With Gale

Gale is sitting when Peeta and I get back down to the living room, but he stands when we enter. Is that pain on his face when we walk in with our arms around each other's waists?

"Hi, Gale," I say.

"Hey, Catnip."

We all sit down, but no one says anything. Gale manages not to scowl at the way Peeta's arm is protectively wrapped around me, but I can see that it bothers him. After an uncomfortably long silence, Gale speaks. "So… You're living here now?" he asks.

"Yeah. Moved in yesterday," I tell him.

"That's quick," he says.

I quickly decide that Gale doesn't need to know about our nightmares or how sleeping together helps alleviate them, or about the anxiety I now feel anytime I don't know for sure that Peeta is safe. I simply shrug my shoulders at him. "Why wait?"

Another uncomfortable silence ensues. It seems to hang around us, more suffocating by the second. How did it become this hard to talk to Gale? We get along so well in the woods, but it occurs to be that our existence out there is heavily dependent on _not_ talking.

This time I break the silence. "Sorry I missed hunting today."

Gale seems relieved. "No problem," he says. "I'm just glad you're not avoiding me."

"No, I'm not avoiding you," I say, maybe a bit too quickly. "With everything going on with the end of filming and then with moving yesterday, I forgot what day it was. It didn't occur to me that today was Sunday until I found out you were here."

"Yeah, well, some of us don't get to lose track of days," Gale says bitterly. Before I can form a response, he continues, "I start in the mines tomorrow."

"Oh," is all I manage to say.

"Yeah," is all Gale says in response.

We both know what it means to work in the mines. Twelve hour days, six days a week. Foul air. Claustrophobic tunnels. Suffocating darkness. And we both know the risks, we both lost our fathers to the same mine explosion. I know I could never stand it. I had twice missed our annual school trip down to the mines because I made myself so sick with dread that my mother thought I had the flu. For Gale, who is only really alive in the fresh air and open sunlight of the woods, it will be absolute torture. But Gale has risked execution every day for the past five years just to feed his family; he'll gladly spend the rest of his life in that dank underground for them.

I wish there was a way I could help Gale. With my victor's stipend, I have more money than anyone in Twelve could spend. I could easily support Gale's entire family. Victors' money is closely monitored, the Capitol doesn't want Victors spreading their wealth to others; but how the Capitol defines wealth is different than here in District 12. The amount needed to support Gale's whole family is probably still too small to attract notice. But Gale wouldn't take it anyway. He's too proud and too stubborn for that. _Just like me_ , I think sadly. The only time I ever accepted someone's help was one day in the rain when I was dying.

"That's not going to leave much time for hunting," I say.

"Nope," Gale says. "Just Sundays."

"What about the snare lines?" I ask. "Will Rory be checking them during the week?"

"No, he wouldn't be able to re-set them. I haven't taught him yet."

"I can check them," I say.

"You don't have to do that," Gale snaps. "I can handle things myself."

"Don't be so stubborn about this, Gale." My voice is starting to rise now. Why can't Gale and I have a civil conversation about anything anymore? "You know you would have fed Mom and Prim if I hadn't come back. At least let me check the snares and make your trades during the week." _And add a few extra coins to the day's haul_ , I add silently.

Gale doesn't say anything, just stares at me. I decide to stare right back. Peeta surprises me by being the one to speak. "You know you'd do it for her," he says quietly. Then after a moment, he adds, "Don't push her away."

Gale looks at Peeta like he wants to punch him, but finally he just throws up his hands in defeat and falls against the back of his chair. "Fine! Check the damn snares if you want to!"

"Thank you, Gale," I say, trying to calm him. He just grunts in return.

No one speaks for a while, the oppressive silence reasserting its dominance. Peeta is the one to break it this time. "You're the one who wanted to talk, Gale. What's on your mind?"

Gale stares at Peeta for a moment before responding. "You think you could give us a few minutes?"

I know Peeta will agree, so I interject before he can respond. "Anything you want to say to me you can say in front of Peeta."

"You don't think we have some things to discuss in private?" Gale says.

"I don't have any secrets from Peeta," I tell him coolly.

"Well, maybe I do!" Gale hisses.

"Well if you do, don't share any of them with me, because I won't keep them!" I say, my voice rising with each word.

Gale looks like he's about to respond, when he stops himself and exhales loudly. "I don't want to fight with you, Catnip. I just want to talk to you." He looks back at Peeta. "In private."

This time it's Peeta who speaks up before I can respond. "Why don't I go make some lunch?"

"You don't have to do that," I tell him.

Peeta takes my face in both his hands. It gives me such a feeling of comfort that I close my eyes for a moment and lean into his touch. When I open them again, Peeta is inches away, looking directly into my eyes. "Look, you two need to talk, and it's obvious Gale won't talk while I'm here." He pauses to give me a quick kiss. "I'll just be in the next room. You'll be fine. Talk to Gale."

Part of me still doesn't want to let him go, but I nod my assent and tell him, "Okay." Before he can leave I reach out to mirror his hold on my face and pull him into another kiss. "I love you," I tell him.

He smiles and says, "I love you," before standing and heading to the kitchen.

I watch him as he leaves, then turn back to Gale, who visibly flinches at the angry look I give him. "Okay, Gale. What's the big secret Peeta can't know until I tell him in five minutes?"

"What's the matter, you can't talk to me anymore without him in the room to chaperone you?" he asks.

"What is your problem with Peeta?" I ask. "Are you really so jealous that you can't accept him? He's not some sort of enemy, Gale. He's the one person I can really count on right now."

Gale looks hurt by my declaration. "You can count on me, Catnip."

"Can I?" I ask incredulously. "Tell me this, did you accept everything I told you the other night or were you planning on asking me the same questions all over again today?" Gale's silence is admission enough, so I press on. "I'll go one better: I trust Peeta, so I know that everything Peeta told you this morning is one hundred percent the truth. Now, do you believe me or do you still doubt him?"

"How can you say that when you don't even know what he said?" Gale asks. Wow, did he really buy that story about me being upstairs asleep the whole time? When Peeta said flat out what I was really doing?

"I don't need to know what he said. I know he wouldn't lie to you unless I asked him to. That's because I trust him. The open question is, do you trust me?" Gale doesn't say anything, he just sits there staring at me, clenching his jaw. I guess that's my answer. "Okay, well, we've established that you don't trust me, don't believe me when I try to tell you things, and also don't trust or believe the one person I trust and count on more than anyone else. Explain to me again the ways in which you're on my side?"

Gale's jaw doesn't relax, but now he looks more pained than angered. "Katniss, we've known each other for years. Committed death-penalty crimes together. Kept each other's family alive. How can you trust him more than me? I understand you two went through a lot together, but how can two months outweigh four years?"

I'm getting very, very tired of Gale Hawthorne's bruised ego. "Gale, you will never understand what Peeta and I have been through. Never. And I wouldn't want you to."

"Why?" he asks. "How can you be so sure that I'll never understand?"

"Because you'll be nineteen by the next Reaping Day."

The silence that hangs between us is heavy. Finally, I break it. "Gale, you have to make a decision. You're right, we've been close for years. I think of you like a brother. I think of Hazelle like a second mother – heck, at times she was more like my only mother. But you need to decide – will you still be my friend now that you're not the most important man in my life?"

Gale seems almost to be studying me. Finally he says, "I really wish I knew what to believe right now."

I let out an exasperated sigh. "Well, you could just believe _me_ , but that would involve some level of trust, and I guess the last four years hasn't earned me any of that. Thanks for making that clear." And with that I stand up leave to join Peeta in the kitchen.

Peeta stands by the stove, heating a pot of stew. He looks up when I enter the room. "That didn't take long. How're things going?"

I sit down at the table and lay my face in my hands. "Terrible. I would never have imagined Gale to be like this. He's so blinded by jealousy, he refuses to believe anything I tell him."

Peeta puts the pot to the side and sits next to me, draping an arm over my shoulders. As if on reflex, I wrap my arms around his chest and lay my head against the front of his shoulder as tears begin to prick the corners of my eyes. "It just hurts, you know? My best friend doesn't trust me anymore because he doesn't want to believe that I love someone else."

"I'm sorry."

I pull away a bit so that I can look Peeta in the eyes. "It's not your fault, Peeta. You have nothing to feel sorry for."

"I feel like I'm causing all of these fractures in your life," Peeta says, gently stroking my hair. "You're fighting with your mother, and with Gale. Yesterday you were getting death glares from Prim of all people. Not to mention this whole mess with the Capitol. It's like I'm breaking apart your life by trying to jam myself into it."

I lift my hand to Peeta's face, resting my palm against his jawline. "You're not jamming yourself into my life, Peeta. I want you in my life. If Gale can't accept that, then that's a problem between me and Gale. But I won't let anything come between us."

"I just wish you didn't have to choose between us," Peeta says with a sigh.

"I know," I say, "But if I have to choose, I choose you. Always."

A small smile works it way onto Peeta's face, and he leans down to brush a quick kiss against my lips. I rest my head back on his shoulder and simply soak in his warm presence for a few minutes.

"You know, I think we should just stop answering that door," I say. At Peeta's confused look, I continue. "Mornings here are always so nice. So peaceful. I love waking up next to you, I love lying in bed with you. But then someone comes banging on that door and ruins our perfect morning. I think from now on we should just stop answering."

Peeta is chuckling now. "Okay. If you say stop answering, I'll stop answering. The rest of the world can go hang so long as you're here with me."

I smile and plant a kiss on a convenient part of Peeta's chest. "Good. I'm glad we agree."

After another couple of minutes, Peeta lets go of me to stand up. "We may as well have lunch," he says, walking back over to the stove. "Did Gale leave? I didn't hear the door."

"No, I'm still here," Gale says, suddenly right behind us. Like me, years of stalking prey in the woods have taught Gale to tread silently. "I was just going to ask if I should leave, actually."

I don't bother to turn around to look at him, or speak to him, or acknowledge him in any way. I wonder how much of my conversation with Peeta he overheard. Then I wonder how much of it he believed. I try to convince myself that I don't care, because the betrayal I'm feeling hurts too much. But if I was being honest with myself, I'd have to admit that I do care, because the betrayal I'm feeling hurts too much.

Peeta turns and looks at me as he sets the pot of stew on the table. He wants to know if I want Gale to stay for lunch. He doesn't want to invite Gale to stay or ask him to leave without me deciding which one I want. The problem is I don't know what I want. I want my friend Gale to stay. But I'd just as soon the Gale I was speaking with earlier leave.

Finally the look of concern in Peeta's big blue eyes is just too much for me. I know Peeta will give Gale as many chances as I want to give him, even though part of him will never get over the feeling that Gale is a threat to our relationship. Peeta knows that no matter how angry or hurt I am right now, if I lost Gale from my life I would always regret it, and once again he's putting my desire to maintain my old friendship ahead of his own feelings of insecurity. In the face of that kind of love, I can't kick Gale out of my life just yet. I still don't turn to look at Gale, but I finally speak. "No, stay for lunch, Gale." _Let's take one more shot at this._

Even as Peeta is getting bowls and glasses, I get up and move to the other side of the table, to make sure I'll be sitting next to Peeta, not Gale. I'm sure this move isn't lost on either Gale or Peeta, but neither seems to react at all.

Peeta sets out a loaf of bread from yesterday and dishes out stew. Neither Gale nor I say anything, so Peeta finally breaks the silence. "So, Gale," he says, "I've already heard Katniss's side. How do you think your private conversation's going so far?"

"It's private for a reason, Mellark," Gale says curtly.

"That's fine," Peeta says. "I was just thinking about how the conversation the two of us had this morning was so much longer than the one the two of you had. So much less shouting, too. Maybe I could help smooth things over between you two?" Gale's glare is venomous, but Peeta maintains his calm, earnest demeanor. "I could act as a mediator, and then you and Katniss might get along as well as you and I do."

I try hard not to let out a laugh, but I utterly fail, and console myself with managing not to spew half-chewed food out of my mouth. Gale doesn't know which of us to glare at. In the end he just says, "Katniss and I get along fine."

"Oh, yes, I'm sure," Peeta says. "That's why my shirt is still damp, because of how well you two were getting along."

Gale looks like he wants to respond, but stops himself before speaking. I find I still have nothing to say to him. After an uncomfortable silence, Peeta speaks up again. "Look, Gale, maybe you're not seeing what's happening right now but let me give you a little preview of your future: You spend the rest of lunch glaring at us, not really saying anything constructive. Then you stomp out of here still angry about things. Katniss cries on my shoulder for a while, because the man she thought of like a brother just walked out of her life. And then you're not her friend anymore, now you're someone she used to know, someone she tries to avoid while bringing food to your family because seeing you makes her angry and uncomfortable. If that's what you want, please continue with the glaring and the anger. But if you were hoping for a different outcome, you may want to try a different strategy."

"What's it to you?" Gale asks. "As if the last thing you want is Katniss crying on your shoulder and me out of the picture."

"The last thing I want is to see her in pain," Peeta says. "I don't care whose shoulder she cries on, I care that her supposed friend made her cry and doesn't seem to care."

"Would you quit acting like you're so much better than everyone else?" Gale asks. "As if everything you do is for her and not selfish in any way!"

I can feel my anger rising as if it's a flame consuming me. How dare he say that to Peeta! Peeta, who gave himself up to the entire Career pack without a second thought? Peeta, who begged me to let him die in that cave rather than risk myself at the feast. "It's not an act, Gale," I say, finally breaking my silence. "If Peeta wasn't better than all of us then I wouldn't be alive right now, and you certainly wouldn't still be here in our house."

"Would you listen to yourself?" Gale says angrily. "' _Our_ house.' It's _his_ house. You shouldn't even be here."

"Who the hell are you to tell me where I should and shouldn't be?" I ask. "I don't let my mother get away with that, and I certainly won't take it from you!"

Gale and I glare at each other for a while before Peeta decides to try to break the tension. He reaches over and takes my hand, prying apart the fist I didn't realize I'd made and twining our fingers together. I can already feel the anger leeching out of my body at his touch. "You know," he says, his calm voice sounding discordant after the outbursts Gale and I have directed at each other, "I got this house for winning the Hunger Games. So technically, you did pay for half of it, Katniss."

I try to let myself be distracted. "By that logic, my house is half yours as well."

"That's true," Peeta says, "but I don't think we should ask our mothers to share it." Peeta gives me a lopsided grin, and I can't help but choke out a laugh at the idea.

Gale interrupts our moment of levity. "Your sappy romance act isn't any more appealing."

Peeta gives Gale an annoyed stare, but I find myself responding first. "It's not an act, Gale," I repeat.

"Of course it is!" Gale says. "I've known you for years, Catnip, I know how you act. And this isn't it. This isn't you!"

"It's the new me," I say. "This is how I act now. This is how I act after surviving the Games. This is how I act with Peeta. This is how I act when I'm in love.

Gale just stares back at us for a moment. "So if you're really in a relationship, what is it exactly? What are you to each other? Boyfriend and girlfriend? Lovers? Roommates? You're not married, right? So what are you?"

This gives me real pause to think. Peeta and I have been through so much in so short a time, we've never stopped to try to define our relationship. What are we to each other? What is Peeta to me? Is Peeta my boyfriend? That's what my mother called him, but the word just doesn't feel right to me. Boyfriend is a guy from school who you go on a third date with. Peeta and I are way beyond that. Are we lovers? We love each other, but the term lovers generally refers to the physical act, not the shared emotion, so in that sense we are not lovers.

"We're together," Peeta says, answering Gale's question without really answering it. I can remember when I would have clung to an answer like that as a way of avoiding confronting my real emotions, but that time ended for me when I finally admitted my love for Peeta. We are definitely together, but we could be together as anything from casual friends to passionate lovers. Gale's question remains: What are we to each other?

There are ever more tortured terms we could use to try to describe our relationship. Companions? Partners? Life-mates? None of them really feels comfortable to me.

I don't exactly have a lot of experience with relationships like this to fall back on. I was never interested in anyone before I fell in love with Peeta. Even as an outside observer, the only family I've ever been close to is the Hawthornes, and Mr. Hawthorne was already gone by the time I got to know them.

So I only have one example of a romantic relationship that I've actually had the chance to see up close. I usually try not to think about it, because of everything that came after, but even when viewed through a child's memories there's no way to dispute how much my parents loved each other. They were each other's whole lives, which had disastrous consequences but I try not to think about that part right now. Right now I only think about what came before. I think about how my father used to look at my mother like she was his entire world, and how much it reminds me of the way Peeta looks at me sometimes. I think about how my mother would stare at my father without realizing it, and would very self-consciously startle and refocus on whatever she was supposed to be doing, and I can't help but compare it to the way I react when Peeta catches me staring at him while he's baking.

A part of me is scared by the comparison. The part of me that wants to avoid Peeta and all the feelings he stirs within me. The part of me that remembers the end of my parents' love story, and wants more than anything to protect myself from that fate. The part of me that pushed Peeta away at that refueling station on the way home from the Capitol. But there's another part of me - the part of me that knows that it's already too late to wall myself off from Peeta, the part of me that wouldn't let him walk away from me at that refueling station, the part of me that I've let take control ever since - that part of me takes heart at the similarities. This whole thing is new for me, and for Peeta too according to what he told me last night. But if we're mirroring my parents' relationship, then I feel confident that we're doing something right.

And it's that thought that leads me to the obvious answer to Gale's question. I can't deny that the answer scares me, but how much of that fear is justified? Peeta doesn't work in the mines. He doesn't need to work at all, in fact. We will never need to struggle to support ourselves. We just survived the Hunger Games; _that_ was the dangerous part of our lives. That was when I could have lost him. We're home now, out of the Games and out of the Capitol and living in a fancy house with piles of money and plenty of food. Now we're safe. Now we get to live.

_Now she tries to cling to happiness so hard that nothing can tear it away from her._ That's what Peeta said about me earlier, and it's true. It's what motivated me to move in here, and it's what motivates me to take the next step now. It's what makes me admit to myself that in the end, there is only one term I can think of that describes everything that Peeta means to me and how important he is in my life. And it's one that I don't have the right to use. Because like Gale said, we're not married, right?

Not yet, anyhow.

"Peeta," I say, coming out of my reverie, "we should get married."

I'm not sure if Peeta or Gale is more surprised by my statement, but Peeta reacts more smoothly. "Really? Are you sure?"

I echo my thoughts from earlier. "Gale wants to know what we are to each other. Well, there's only one word I can come up with that really describes how I feel about you, that encompasses everything you mean to me." I smile a bit, and reach over to brush some hair out of Peeta's eyes, letting my hand linger there. "I want you to be my husband, Peeta. I love you, and I want to spend my life with you, and I want you to be my husband. We're already more tightly bound to each other than most married couples, and I don't see any point in waiting. So let's sign the forms and make it official."

The look of joy on Peeta's face is amazing, but I only get to see it for a brief moment before his lips are crashing against mine. I wrap my arms around his neck and behind his head to press our faces impossibly closer, and I feel his arms engulf me in return. We kiss for what feels like forever, a kiss that expresses love and joy and hunger and longing and contentment and happiness far more than words ever could. Well, my words, at least. When we finally come up for air, the look on Peeta's face hasn't changed. Just seeing it makes me feel as happy as he looks. "Nothing would make me happier than to be your husband, Katniss," he says before kissing me again. I feel so happy in this moment, I can't help the smile that pulls my lips away from his. We pull back slightly to simply stare at each other, and I'm sure my smile is as dopey as Peeta's but I can't find it in myself to care right now. I feel like my whole life is falling into place, and it's everything that I've never wanted and I couldn't be happier.

It isn't until Gale clears his throat that I remember that we're not alone. He looks horrified. I feel embarrassed, because in the moment I had honestly forgotten he was there. I don't know what to say to him, but luckily Peeta jumps in to save me. "Sorry, Gale," he says. "Kind of got lost in the moment there."

Nobody seems to be eating much anymore, and now Peeta and I have things to do, so I decide lunch is over. "So Gale, you're free later, right? I figure we'll have dinner around six."

"Um, you're inviting me back for dinner?" he replies, confused.

"For our toasting," I say.

Gale looks almost ill. "You can't get married today!"

"Why not?" I ask, my anger growing again.

Peeta takes my hand, instantly calming me. "Katniss," he says softly, "it's Sunday. The Justice Building is closed today."

He's right, of course. It was silly of me to forget that. But alternate plans are already turning in my mind. I may have only made one friend in school, but I'm more and more grateful for who that friend is. "We just won't go to the Justice Building then. I think we can still get married today." I smirk a bit. "We got them to change the rules of the Hunger Games, I think we can manage to get married on a Sunday. Besides, we can still do the toasting today even if we have to wait until tomorrow to go to the Justice Building."

"You seriously want to get married today?" Peeta asks.

"Yes," I answer. "Why, do you have some reason you want to wait?"

"No, not at all," Peeta says, his smile growing again. "So what's your secret marriage plan?"

"Well, the first thing we're going to need are shoes," I say, my smile growing to match Peeta's.

"Should I just leave, then?" Gale asks. Somehow the other side of the table seems further away now.

I turn to look back at him. I'm in such a good mood now that I want to try again with my friend. "No, stay and finish eating. Give us a few minutes and we can all walk to town together."

Gale seems to think for a moment before shaking his head. "No, I think I'll head home," he says.

"Okay," I say, trying to keep from snapping at him again. "We'll see you later, right?"

"…I don't know," Gale says after a moment.

Just like that my momentary euphoria leaves me. That's that, then. If Gale was still my friend, of whatever sort he could manage to be under the circumstances, then he would at least come to my toasting. If not, then I'm not going to try to force the issue. I made my choice between my friendship with Gale and my love for Peeta, now whatever choice Gale wants to make I'll let him make it. "You'll let your mother know, at least? The rest of the family's still invited even if you… don't want to come," I say, biting off another nasty jab at the last minute.

"Yeah, okay, I'll tell her," Gale says, standing from the table. "See you around, Catnip." He leaves without another word.

Peeta and I go upstairs, but when we get there I just sit on the bed. Peeta sits next to me and takes me in his arms. I manage not to cry again, but after watching Gale walk out of my life I don't seem to have the strength left to do anything other than lean up against Peeta and be held.

After several minutes, Peeta breaks the silence. "If he's really your friend, he'll come around," he says.

"That's what I'm afraid of," I say. "I think I was right the other night when I said I'd lost my friend. I feel it even more now than I did that night. And what's worse, I don't even think it's my fault. I feel like Gale changed more during the Games than I did."

"Well, that's a good sign, right?" Peeta says. "If watching you in the Games affected him that much, that means he really cares about you."

That comment is just so typically _Peeta_ that I have to shake my head. "Peeta," I say, "you're too nice a person for your own good. You know that, right?"

"Why do you say that?" he asks.

"Just this morning you were going on about perfect moments and the first day of the rest of our lives, and you've spent the whole day since then trying to get me back together with someone who I know you see as some sort of…" I pause, searching for the right term. "…rival for my affections."

Peeta quirks his eyebrow at me, and I can see the laughter in his eyes. "Do I need to worry about any rivals for your affections?"

I decide to get into the playful mood, because it's easier than dwelling on how my morning with Gale went. "There's only one man who has a claim on my affections, and it's not Gale." I give Peeta the dreamiest smile that I can muster on purpose. "It's Rye."

Peeta's laughter is loud and uncontrolled. After a few seconds I can't keep a straight face any longer and join in. It feels good to laugh after all the tension of the morning. Soon we're both laying back on the bed trying to contain ourselves.

"That was mean," Peeta says, propping himself up on an elbow so he can look down at me. "I'm going to have to get back at you for that, Miss Everdeen."

"That's okay," I say, "I have a pretty foolproof escape plan."

"Oh yeah?" Peeta says with a smile. "What's that?"

I'm already pulling him down for another kiss as I respond. "I don't plan on being Miss Everdeen for much longer."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to admit, I'm really nervous to see the reaction to this one.
> 
> My natural inclination in these author's notes is to explain and justify every choice I made in each chapter, and never more so than with this one. I don't do that, because I think the story should stand on its own and the readers should be free to interpret things however they like. But if you ever have any questions about any of that, feel free to ask in a review, or hit up my ask box on Tumblr. And thanks again for reading!
> 
> Next chapter: Well, it should be kind of obvious what happens next chapter, right? Here's a hint, just in case:
> 
> Preview quote from Chapter 8:
> 
> _"Okay, so nothing special. Just the marriage of the Co-Victors."_


	8. Errands in Town

It's almost two by the time Peeta and I are making our way across town, which is later than I was hoping for, but we got hung up at Haymitch's. We decided to wait to tell our families until after we did the forms, but we thought Haymitch would need the extra time to put himself together for the toasting so we woke him up before leaving the Victor's Village. I woke Haymitch the way I always do, by dumping a pitcher over his head, but after that Peeta insisted on staying and helping him clean up. He really is too nice for his own good sometimes.

Haymitch had grumbled incoherently for a while once we'd explained our plans. I could only make out the occasional word; "foolish," "wedding," "Capitol," and "idiots" figured prominently. Eventually he gathered his wits to produce one intelligible sentence: "I guess looking over-eager can't hurt." Then he vomited. I suppose that's his way of giving us his blessing.

We had discussed before leaving home whether we should get dressed up for the wedding. Normally women will rent a white dress and men will wear their nicest suit of clothes. Peeta seemed to want to, but I was strongly against it; after being dolled up in the Capitol, even this small bit of dressing up left a sour taste in my mouth. "Besides, if we go rent a dress then everyone will know what we're doing. I don't want all that attention." Peeta didn't argue with that.

He surprised me, however, when he went and got his cane before we left the Victor's Village. I hadn't seen him use it since the first week after we got home. "Just in case," he explained a bit hesitantly. "I've never walked all the way to town without it." He spent days circulating throughout the crowd at luncheons and banquets without needing the cane's assistance, not to mention helping me move yesterday. But somehow I could feel that what Peeta really needed in that moment wasn't encouragement, but acceptance. So I said nothing; I just took his free hand and smiled at him, and we set out for town.

With the Justice Building closed, we instead head over to the nicest house in Twelve outside of the Victor's Village. I almost go to the back door out of force of habit, before Peeta redirects me to the front. But when I go to knock on the Undersees' door, he stills my hand.

I look up at him in question, and I'm surprised by the nervous tension on his face. "Katniss," he begins, then stops and hesitates before speaking again. "We're not getting married just to prove a point to Gale, are we?"

I'm shocked by his question. Shocked and pissed off, and I'm about to unload on him when I quickly replay the morning in my head, and I have to hold myself back. I can see how _someone_ might think that, but it hurts to think that Peeta might believe it. "Of course not. I love you, Peeta."

Peeta sighs a little. He reaches out and takes both my hands in his; I let him for the moment. "I know that," he says. "And I love you. But that doesn't mean we have to get married today."

"Are you saying you don't want to?" I ask. And because I lash out when I'm hurting, I add, "You had the chance to say no, you know."

Peeta ignores my jab. "I would love to marry you, whenever you want to. But that doesn't have to be today. The last thing I want is for you to wake up tomorrow, or next week or next year or in ten years, and regret for one second that we rushed into things."

I let out a groan of frustration. I appreciate how much Peeta looks out for me, I really do. It's literally saved my life, more than once. But right now it's just frustrating, because at base the thing he's trying to protect me from is himself. He thinks one day I'll regret marrying him, when the truth is exactly the opposite.

Yet I can't truly be angry with Peeta. It's not his fault he feels this way. It's his mother's fault; she's the one who drilled into his head the idea that no one could love him, that he would never be anything but a burden to the people around him. And it's partly my fault, I act on impulse and rarely ever stop to explain myself, hoping that my actions will explain what my words cannot. It's easy to see why that would lead someone to think I might do something I'd later regret. Especially someone like Peeta, someone who speaks so beautifully, someone who thrives on words. Peeta needs more than my sudden action, he needs to know why. Peeta needs to know what I'm feeling right now.

I really wish I was able to tell him. But I know I'm not. I don't have the words. So instead I grab his head in both hands and slam our lips together.

Peeta lets out an involuntary gasp at my sudden action, and I take the opportunity to thrust my tongue into his open mouth. As I tilt my head and continue to move my lips against his, he starts kissing back. I feel his arms wrap themselves around my back, one just under my shoulders and one near the base of my spine and gradually working its way lower. I move my hands behind his head, alternately stroking down his neck and tangling my fingers in the short hairs there, eliciting a delicious noise from the back of his throat. Or did that moan come from me? I can't keep track as Peeta presses back again my mouth just as hard as I'm pressing myself into him. He pins me up against the wall with his entire body. Soon I can't hear any sounds over the roar of my heart pounding and the blood rushing through me.

When I come up for air, we're pressed so closely together that we may as well be one person. Peeta has abandoned my lower back and now has a firm handful of my backside. My arms are wrapped so tightly around his neck that I've nearly pulled myself up off the ground. Or maybe Peeta did that. It couldn't possibly matter any less.

Peeta's eyes are just regaining their focus as I look directly into them. "I love you, Peeta. I want to marry you. Do you want to marry me?"

As I watch his smile slowly grow wider, it's like I can see his brain recovering from our kiss and figuring out what I just said. "Yes," he breathes out, nodding his head dumbly. "Yes I want to marry you. I always have."

"I want to do it now," I say. "What would we be waiting for exactly? I'm not going to love you any more in six months than I do right now. We're not suddenly going to be more dedicated to each other than we already are. Do you really want to wait?"

"No," he says, again mirroring his words with a shake of his head.

I smile back at him. "Good. Then knock on the door."

He grins, and takes a step back. I release my hold on his neck and he gently places me back on the ground. As he turns to knock on the door, I try to smooth out the hair I've disrupted behind his head. He turns back to me and begins straightening my shirt.

I can't help the blush that spreads on my face. We've certainly had our share of passionate kisses lately, but the entranceway in front of the mayor's house may not be the best place for them. I shudder to think exactly how obviously our previous activities are painted across our faces as I hear footsteps approaching the other side of the door.

I'm expecting the Undersees' housekeeper to answer, but instead it's Madge who opens the door. "Katniss! Peeta! Is there another banquet we forgot about?"

I can't help but smile at Madge, my nervousness dissipating. It occurs to me that I probably never smiled at her in all the years we were friends before the Games. I don't know which is the bigger aberration, how little I smiled back then or how much I've been smiling lately. Peeta and I saw the Undersees every day for the last month at the victory events, but this is the first time I've seen Madge since the Games when I haven't had to be Capitol Katniss. Even though we weren't as close as Gale and I were, I find I've missed my friend. "No, actually, we came to ask you for a favor."

"Really?" She seems overjoyed at this. "Well, come in then."

She leads us down a hall into a sitting room. I've become much more familiar with the mayor's house over the last month than I ever imagined I would be. "I have to admit, I didn't think I'd see you two for a while after that last event on Friday," Madge says.

"To tell the truth, we didn't either," Peeta says. "We've spent the last few days trying to figure out what exactly we want to do now that we're back." He gives me a quick look before turning his attention back to Madge. "And, well, I guess it's going a bit more quickly than we thought it would."

Madge seems intrigued. I think she knows where this is going. "Oh, really?" she says.

"Madge," I say, deciding to just get to the point, "like I said we kind of need a favor." I pause for a moment. "We want to get married. Today. And since the Justice Building is closed, we were hoping your father could help us out."

Madge looks like she might explode with excitement. "Are you serious?" she almost shrieks, before running over and grabbing us both in a big hug. "I had a feeling that's what you were getting at, but I didn't want to get my hopes up. Oh, this is so exciting!"

Seeing shy, quiet Madge bursting with excitement like this is unusual. She's far more excited for my wedding than I am, actually. I don't really care about the wedding, which is why we're doing it at the mayor's house on a Sunday afternoon with none of our family here. The wedding is just a means to an end for me; the part I care about is spending my life with Peeta. But however reserved Madge normally acts, she was always interested in jewelry and dresses and other stereotypically girlish pursuits, so her excitement for my wedding doesn't really surprise me.

"So, do you think your father will be able to marry us today?" Peeta asks.

"Oh, yes, of course he will," Madge says, finally letting us go. "He does emergency marriages all the time. Come on, he's upstairs in his office."

_Emergency marriages?_ I'm not entirely sure I understand what Madge is saying when she uses that term. Peeta and I are eager to be married, but we're not in an emergency. I shrug it off as Madge leads us up a flight of stairs and down a hallway. She knocks once at a set of double doors before breezing into the room, Peeta and I trailing in her wake.

Despite Madge being the closest thing I had to a friend in school, I had rarely ever met Mayor Undersee before coming home from the Games. Other than when he presented me with a medal following my father's death, the only real interaction I ever had with him was occasionally selling him strawberries. I normally dealt with the Undersees' housekeeper or sometimes Madge, but occasionally the mayor would be the one to answer the back door when I knocked. I found him to be polite, if reserved. He seemed like someone who could have been jovial but just didn't have the energy for it. He always seemed tired, which I was more than a bit disdainful of at the time. Even if I didn't share Gale's knee-jerk anger at merchants, I mentally scoffed at the idea of the mayor having anything close to the difficulties we faced in the Seam every day. This was before I learned what dealing with the Capitol was like.

I got to know the mayor a lot more in the weeks following our return from the Games. He was part of almost all of the Victory events we attended. Once I knew the kind of weariness caused by trying to appease the Capitol, I recognized it in the mayor. I believe he recognized it in Peeta and me as well, because as the month of balls and banquets wore on he would spend more and more time with us. I began to feel that, much like Haymitch was a kindred spirit in that he was the only other person in Twelve to have gone through the Games, Mayor Undersee was one as well, to a lesser extent, as he was the only resident of Twelve other than the three Victors to have to deal with the Capitol on a regular basis. Well, other than the Peacekeepers, I guess. He was still very reserved in many ways, but as we became more comfortable with each other I found him to be quite friendly as well. If the Capitol was angry at Peeta and me, it would be good to count on the mayor as an ally, and as the month wore on I was pleased to find that I thought of him as such.

"Katniss, Peeta. What a pleasant surprise," Mayor Undersee says, standing to greet us as we follow Madge into his office. "I didn't think I'd see you two again so soon."

"Neither did we," Peeta says, echoing his earlier answer to Madge.

"Is everything all right?" the mayor asks, suddenly concerned. "Has something happened?"

"Oh, no, nothing's wrong," I say hastily. "It's just, um…" I start to stumble over my words.

"Dad, they want to get married," Madge explains.

"Oh really?" the mayor says.

"Yes," Peeta says. "We'd like to be married. Today. And since the Justice Building is closed, Katniss thought that you would be able to help us out."

"Of course, of course. I always keep copies of all the marriage forms here in the house," Mayor Undersee says as he begins opening drawers. "Every so often someone will come in with an… emergency."

That's the same term Madge used earlier. "Emergency?" I ask, not understanding.

"Er, usually when someone needs to get married urgently, it's due to… unexpected early labor." I must make a sound when I realize what he's saying, because he then asks, "This isn't that kind of a situation, is it?"

"No!" I almost exclaim.

"We're not in an… emergency," Peeta says, using the mayor's terminology. "We're just impatient."

"After being reaped into the Games, waiting for the proper time loses its appeal," I explain. "Even waiting an extra day."

"I can only imagine," the mayor says. My respect for him goes up when he doesn't say _I understand_ as many people would have, because honestly he doesn't.

"Now then…" he begins as he gathers forms from various drawers in his desk. "You're both over the age of sixteen so you don't need the parental waiver…" He sets aside one of the forms. "And since you both already have your Victory Houses you don't need a housing assignment…" He sets aside another of the forms. "You need a district official to administer the vows, that'll be me, and because you're under eighteen you'll need an additional witness. Madge here can fill that role, unless there's someone else you'd rather go and get?"

I shake my head. "No, that'd be fine. If you're willing, Madge?"

Madge is still beside herself. "Of course! I'd love to!"

Peeta and I fill out the forms. Madge cosigns a couple of them. Mayor Undersee administers vows. Madge looks like she may cry. And at the end of it, Peeta and I are husband and wife.

"Now, this won't be completely official until I drop the forms off with the district clerk when I go to the office tomorrow morning, but other than that you are as married as I can make you. Let me be the first to congratulate you, Mr. and Mrs. Mellark." The mayor is beaming as he says this, and I can't help but smile back. I never wanted to be Mrs. anybody, but right now the thought that I'm now Mrs. Peeta Mellark makes me incredibly happy. I can't help but grab Peeta and press a quick kiss against his lips, even with Madge and Mayor Undersee standing there watching us.

I look at Peeta; his adorably unruly blond hair, his strong jawline, his bright smiling eyes, his lean arms and chest; and suddenly my thoughts fall into place: I'm married. Today is my wedding day. That means tonight is my _wedding night_. Somehow, in all of my excitement about marrying Peeta, that never occurred to me.

Has Peeta been thinking about that? Knowing Peeta, he probably dismissed the thought out of hand. He'd stay with me for the next fifty years and never ask for more than the occasional kiss. The bigger question is, now that I've thought of it, what am I going to do about it?

I'm not an idiot. I know about sex. Just because I was never interested before doesn't mean I'm ignorant. My mother is a healer, and I went to school surrounded by teenagers, after all. I know what goes on behind the slag heap. I know what sex is; it sounds uncomfortable, frankly. I know a girl's first time often involves pain, and blood, and from the way some girls describe it I've never really understood the appeal.

But none of those doubts seem to occur to me when I'm kissing Peeta. Little by little, we've been progressing our physical relationship, and it's not like I don't know what we're building to. Last night we spoke of it quite plainly. In those moments, none of my previous reservations seem to hold any sway over me.

I remember the hunger I felt during that one kiss in the cave during the Games. The hunger that came to full bloom on the train home. The hunger that I feel now every time our lips and bodies touch, even on my mother's back porch, or just outside the mayor's front door. A hunger for more. A hunger for Peeta. And I admit to myself that, in the end, I don't really have a decision to make here. My decision was made a long time ago.

There isn't anything I don't want to share with Peeta.

I look over at Peeta. _My_ Peeta, he's officially mine now. My Peeta, with his blond curls falling into his eyes, seemingly begging for me to reach out and stroke them back off of his face. What would they look like plastered to his forehead by the sweat of our exertions? My Peeta, with those bright blue eyes that overflow with love and devotion. What would they look like brimming with lust? Would they darken with desire? Or would they light up with joy? My Peeta, with his powerful arms that can easily lift hundred-pound bags of flour, or hurl massive weights for the Gamemakers, but are so gentle when they hold me at night, so calming when they soothe me after a nightmare. His hard chest and strong body toned by years of hauling heavy bags of ingredients at the bakery. His large hands, strong enough to stretch and mold the heaviest doughs, but delicate enough to create beautifully intricate pastries and cake decorations. How would those skilled hands feel on my body, kneading my flesh?

All of a sudden, I quite consciously realize that I need to start thinking about something else before I become noticeably flustered. I've been standing here staring at Peeta for who knows how long, not noticing that conversation has continued around me. "Thank you so much for helping us out today," Peeta is saying. "It really means a lot to us." It isn't until Peeta says so that I realize just how much it does mean to me.

"I know it's short notice," I find myself saying, "but would you like to come over to our house later for the toasting?"

Madge's face lights up, but the mayor is already begging off. "We wouldn't want to intrude…"

"It wouldn't be an intrusion," Peeta says.

"We wouldn't have invited you if we didn't want you there," I add. "Just ask Madge, I'm not that nice."

The mayor smiles warmly. "Well, if you insist…"

"Please, we'd love to have you there." A sudden thought occurs to me. "Just… This isn't going to be like one of those big Capitol victory events," I explain. "This is just dinner. Nothing fancy."

"Had enough of those victory banquets?" he asks.

"YES!" Peeta and I exclaim simultaneously, earning a solid laugh from the mayor.

"Okay, so nothing special. Just the marriage of the Co-Victors," he says, his eyes sparkling at his small joke. "What time should we come by?"

"Six," supplies Peeta. "Like Katniss said, we'll have dinner, then the toasting."

"And there'll probably be an incredibly beautiful cake," I add. Peeta chuckles.

We need to get back home if we want everything ready by six, so we say our goodbyes to the Undersees and make our way across town to the bakery. Peeta is oblivious, but I make note of the curious mix of reactions we get as we walk. I noticed the same thing at some of the Victory events, but it was less pronounced in the formal setting. There are some people who are clearly enamored by the Star Crossed Lovers, pointing and staring and occasionally swooning at seeing us together. Others eye us warily, remembering six weeks earlier when they were watching us murder children on their televisions. And, despite everything that's happened with Peeta and me, there are still people who have the typical Twelve reactions to seeing a merchant boy with a Seam girl. I wonder idly if they still think he's paying me, even though I could buy half the town with my Victor's stipend.

We arrive at the bakery to find all four Mellarks in the storefront, an unusual occurrence. They appear to be in the middle of a conversation, which stops when they all look up at us as we enter. This is the first time I've seen Peeta's mother since we got back, and I'm not looking forward to it. But I know Peeta wants to talk to her, he still hopes that she might at least be civil for our wedding, so it's just as well that she's here now and we don't have to talk to her separately.

Of course his mother is the first to react. "What is _she_ doing here? You know we don't allow Seam trash in the bakery." she says with a sneer. "You know if you keep letting yourself be seen with her then you'll never get a proper girl to consider marrying you."

Not an auspicious start.

Peeta's hand is nearly crushing mine now, but he shows no other outward reaction. His voice is tight, but steady. "Mother, you know I'm not interested in marrying any other girl. And I don't think any other girl would want to marry me once she finds out I'm already married."

The mix of reactions he gets is interesting. Peeta's father looks genuinely pleased for a moment, before taking an apprehensive look at his wife. Barlee is slack-jawed in shock. Rye is smirking as if he's thought of the perfect barb to throw our way.

But Peeta's mother is depressingly predictable, she moves quickly from horror to disgust to rage as she steps out from behind the counter to confront her son. "Don't be stupid," she says. "You're not married, they would have announced it at one of those damned dinners I refused to attend."

I decide to explain. "We've just come from the mayor's house, where Mayor Undersee administered our official marriage. We came here to invite you all to our house later, for our toasting."

Peeta's mother gives me a cold glare, and speaks directly to me for the first time since she threatened to call the Peacekeepers to arrest me for looking through her trash. "You have nothing to say that I'm interested in hearing." She then turns back to Peeta, and I can see her rage building as her hands are clenching into fists and her arms start twitching, as if she can barely hold back from punching someone.

From punching her son.

I've always known what went on in the Mellark house, but now seeing it first hand I truly can't believe this is happening. She looks like she's about to beat Peeta in the head, and Peeta is standing impassively waiting to take it, and the three other men in the room are simply waiting for the inevitable. The reactions – or lack of reactions, rather – of the rest of the Mellarks show how common this situation is.

"And you, you stupid boy-" she begins, but by now the twitching in her arms is too much for me. I instinctively pull Peeta back by our clasped hands and take a half-step to position myself in front of him. Between him and danger. Between him and his mother.

"You should unclench your fists and back away," I tell her. "I wouldn't want either of us to let our tempers get the better of us."

This only seems to make her madder, but before she can do anything Peeta has mirrored my earlier move, pulling me behind him and stepping in front. "It's fine, Katniss." He's addressing me, but his eyes remain locked on his mother. "I'm sure my mother just wants to welcome the newest Mrs. Mellark to the family."

As soon as that name leaves his lips his mother snaps. "Don't call her that! Don't try to dignify what you do with that Seam-rat whore by calling it a marriage! You stupid, worthless boy!" Now she finally raises one fist to strike Peeta across the face, and I'm moving without thinking.

Before I'm fully aware that I'm doing it, I've grabbed her wrist in mid-swing, and twisted her arm around and up into the small of her back. I just hold her there for a few moments, almost as shocked by my action as the rest of the Mellarks seem to be. I can't see Mrs. Mellark's face, but she's flailing uselessly with her other hand, trying desperately to reach me. Peeta's brothers are just staring in utter disbelief. Mr. Mellark looks vaguely miserable about the whole thing; I try to muster some sympathy for this kind-hearted man, but then I remember that he could have done something to stop this any time in the last sixteen years and didn't, so I find I have little sympathy for him now. Peeta just looks disappointed.

I lean in close behind Mrs. Mellark's ear and speak with a clear, steady voice. "If you don't stop struggling, I'll dislocate your shoulder." In truth I'm more likely to do it by accident while trying to restrain her than on purpose, but she doesn't need to know that. She stills, though her body is still shaking slightly. With rage or fear, I can't tell.

"Good. Wise choice," I tell her. "I know Peeta lets you get away with that. He's a kind, gentle person. How he got that way growing up with you I'll never understand. But you should know that I'm not that way. I'm a hunter. A fighter." I remember her words to her son after the reaping. "A survivor, if you will. If someone attacks my family, I fight back. If someone attacks my _husband_ , I will defend him. So you will _never_ touch Peeta again. You will never lay a finger on him, or else I will hunt you down." I pause to let my words sink in.

"Filthy Seam trash," she gets out between gritted teeth. "I should have you locked up for assaulting me in my own home!"

"Do you really think that's likely to happen?" I ask her. "You think old Cray's going to want to report to the Capitol that he locked up one of the Co-Victors from District 12? Can you even imagine the reaction in the Capitol if they found out that the Girl on Fire got in a fight with her mother-in-law? They wouldn't arrest me for that, they'd put me on an overnight train so I could tell Caesar Flickerman all about it!"

"Katniss," Peeta says softly, "we should go."

As soon as I hear the calm sadness in his voice, I feel ridiculous, standing here with his mother in a hammerlock. I shove her away from me with a grunt of frustration. She glares back at me with unrestrained hatred as she rubs some feeling back into her shoulder. I notice no one comes to her aid. Of course, none of them came to Peeta's aid either. Not for sixteen years.

"We came here today to invite you to our home," I say, "which is a place filled with love and joy. To celebrate our _wedding_ , an event wholly dedicated to love and joy. If you can manage to muster up any love for your son on the happiest day of his life, then come over later and celebrate with us. But if all you have in you is hate and bitterness and abuse, then you'd be well served to never find yourself in the same room with me ever again."

Mrs. Mellark seems to have found her voice again as she closes the distance between us. "If you think I'm going to _celebrate_ tarnishing my family with the taint of Seam trash, just because my worthless, soft-headed son is thinking with his-"

She doesn't finish her thought because my fist has made a solid, meaty impact with her jaw, sending her sprawling backwards onto the floor.

Nobody reacts. I guess they're used to violence. After a moment I step forward and stand next to Mrs. Mellark so I can look straight down at her. I'm not tall enough to intimidate people normally, but I'm plenty tall enough to look down on Mrs. Mellark now, when she's lying on the floor due to my fist. From the way she's moving her jaw I don't think I broke it, but there's already a bright red mark forming where I hit her. She'll be the one with an ugly bruise, for once.

For a moment I hate myself for sinking to her level, but I won't let her see that. My voice is quiet but brimming with menace when I finally break the stunned silence. "If all you understand is violence, then I'm perfectly capable of violence. Nobody talks that way about my husband."

For once she has the good sense not to say anything, she just lays there rubbing her jaw. Suddenly the absurdity of what I'm doing nearly overwhelms me, and I need to get out of here. I spin around before anything can register on my face and almost run for the door. But I manage to control my voice as I turn my head and snarl over my shoulder, "Love and joy. Six o'clock!" on my way out.

I don't wait for Peeta, I just take off running. I know Peeta will say something to make me feel better, and I don't want to feel better right now. I run away from the bakery, across town, up the road to the Victor's Village. I'm almost back to the Village when I realize I don't know where I want to go. I don't want to go home, and I don't want to go see my mother yet. For want of any better destination, I simply stop and sit by a tree at the edge of the Village. My physical exhaustion after the run now matches my mental exhaustion after the encounter with Peeta's mother. I rest my elbows on my knees and let my head droop forward into my hands, and just sit there wallowing in how badly I handled everything.

When I finally hear Peeta approaching, I don't bother looking up. He doesn't say anything either, just walks over and sits down next to me. I lean my head over against him as he drapes his arm over my shoulders.

"I'm sorry," I say. "I don't know what the hell I was doing in there. I just, ugh she makes me so mad! I'm sorry."

"It's all right," Peeta says, trying to sooth me.

"No it's not all right! I went in there to try to make peace with your mother and wound up punching her!" I can feel Peeta shuddering against me. Great now I've made him cry.

Wait, he's not crying…

"Peeta, why are you laughing?"

Peeta tries to speak around laughs. "Do you know, no one has ever done that before? No one has ever stood up to her like that. Customers don't even stand up to her. That may be the first time she's ever had to deal with someone who wouldn't take crap from her. I mean, did you see how absolutely _livid_ she got when she realized she didn't intimidate you?"

I don't want to, but I can't help but smile at that. "She was pretty mad."

"'Pretty mad?' She was madder than she's ever been any time she's hit me. I thought she was going to pop a blood vessel or something." Now Peeta has finally gotten me to laugh.

"Peeta, I really am sorry. I shouldn't have done that to her. It's just, seeing her like that, it's like something in me snapped."

"If there's one thing you and I do, we always protect each other," Peeta says.

I nod. "Yes, exactly. I mean, I always knew she was an evil witch, I knew what she did to you. But I've never actually _seen_ it. Not since…" I trail off, realizing what I was about to say. But it's too late.

"Wait, you've seen that before?" Peeta asks.

I sigh. "Yes., once."

"When was that?" Peeta asks.

"The day you gave me the bread."

Peeta makes a small sound that would have been an "Oh," if he had actually fully vocalized it. We sit quietly like that for several minutes.

I shift over a bit so I can lay down with my head in Peeta's lap. I look up at him and immediately relax. "You loved me even back then, didn't you?" I ask.

"Yes," Peeta says as he begins pulling my hair out of my braid and running his fingers through it. "Ever since we were five years old."

I close my eyes and smile at the feel of Peeta's hands in my hair. Does he know I enjoy this as much as he does? "If we hadn't ended up in the Games together, do you think you would have ever told me how you felt?"

Peeta considers this for a long moment. "I don't know. I'd like to think I would have managed it one day, but all the years I stayed silent suggest otherwise." He pauses for another moment. "If I had told you, would you have given me a chance? A real chance?"

Now it's my turn to consider, and my answer makes me sad. "Probably not. I wasn't open to anything like that. At all. I would have just pushed you away. I mean, I almost pushed you away anyway, even after I fell in love with you."

"Well, then being forced into the Games was a real stroke of luck for both of us then," Peeta says.

"Oh yeah, real lucky. All we had to do to have a life together was be thrown to our near certain deaths, change the rules of the Hunger Games, and make the President hate us."

"Come now, isn't living with me worth making the president hate you?" Peeta asks, joking.

"Yes," I answer, completely serious. Peeta doesn't respond, just leans down and kisses me.

We sit there another few minutes before a thought occurs to me. "Peeta, is there anyone else you want to invite for tonight?"

"Well," he says a bit sheepishly, "I did invite Delly Cartwright."

This catches me by surprise. "What? When?"

"When I was chasing you through town. I ran into her bringing a delivery back to her parents' shop, so I could invite her alone without the rest of her family."

"You could have invited the family," I say, but Peeta just shakes his head.

"I didn't want to. Delly and I were close growing up, but the rest of the family…" Peeta pauses for a moment, and shakes his head again. "They're fine, but I have no burning desire to include them in my wedding."

"Well, is there anyone else you want to invite?" I ask.

"No," he says.

I frown up at him. "Not anyone? Not at all?"

"No," he repeats. "Why, is there someone else you want to invite?"

"No. It just seems like we're not including anyone from your life in any of these events we have, I have so many more people there than you do." In truth this has been bothering me a bit ever since we got back and the Victory events began. "I was always the loner, I was the one with no friends, but I have tons of guests at all of these events, with all of the Hawthornes and now Madge. But you're the friendly one, you always seemed to have plenty of friends in school. Isn't there anyone else you were close to? Anyone you would want to share this all with?"

"No, not really," Peeta says. "I never had anyone I was close to like that. I had a lot of people I was friendly with, but no real close friends. Delly and I grew up together, I've known her forever, but other than that I was never really close to anyone."

I can't help but frown again. "That's really sad."

Peeta smiles as if this amuses him. "You find my life sad?"

I shake my head slightly. "You're such an open, warm person. You have such a giving heart. It does make me kind of sad that you never had anyone close enough to share that with. I closed myself off from the world and I still had Prim and Gale and Hazelle and Madge. You open yourself up to everyone and somehow you were still alone. That makes me sad."

Peeta just smiles down at me. "Well, you don't have to worry about it anymore. I've found someone to share things with now."

"Oh really?" I say, trying to feign seriousness even though I can't keep the wide smile off my face. "And who is this person who finally managed to worm their way into your incredibly open and inviting heart?"

"Well, she didn't really worm her way in," Peeta says, his smile growing. "She's sort of always been there."

"Always?" I ask.

"Ever since I was five years old."

"Well well," I say, "this girl must be pretty special to deserve that kind of attention from you."

"She's the most special girl I've ever met," Peeta says, his eyes smoldering with pure adoration. "She's strong, and brave, and beautiful. She's loyal, and kind, and smart, and fearless, and loving, and a really great kisser," he adds, smirking a bit at the last.

It still makes me uncomfortable sometimes when Peeta heaps praise on me like that. "I'm sure she's not all of that…"

"She's too modest, though," Peeta interrupts me, making me laugh again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whee! Things are moving right along now.
> 
> I said in an earlier chapter that the plot of CF would enter this story in Chapter 10. I should stop making predictions. Depending on how long things end up being, that might not happen until Chapter 12. But don't quote me on that, I did just say that I should stop making predictions.
> 
> I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to leave a review on this story. I know I say that every chapter, but every chapter I get another bunch of great reviews. So Thanks!
> 
> Next chapter: There's still one more family to talk to. What will Prim and Mrs. Everdeen think of this turn of events? Plus, the newlyweds prepare for their wedding. (Bifurcated marriage rituals make weird things happen.)
> 
> Preview quote from Chapter 9:
> 
> _"Do you think we're making a mistake?"_


	9. Bread and Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, old friends. It's been a while.

Our last stop before going home to prepare for dinner is my house - well, my mother's house, I guess. For some reason it feels like it's been forever since I've been here, even though it was just yesterday. For the first time, I knock on the door to request entrance to my own Victor's house.

My mother answers the door, and she gives me a look of disappointment and anger. I thought we had left things off at a good place the day before, so I'm not sure what's happened to change her mood so completely. I choose to ignore it for now, and simply say, "Hi Mom, can we come in for a minute?"

"Yes, I believe we have a lot to talk about," she says. I'm wracking my brain as my mother leads us into the living room and we all sit down. What have I done since yesterday to bother her this much?

Everything falls into place as soon as I see Hazelle come in from the kitchen. "She already told you, didn't she?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, dear," Hazelle says, breezing into the room. "I didn't realize nobody knew yet. I just assumed that if Gale knew, everyone else must know as well."

"Gale just happened to be at the house when we decided, that's why he knew before everyone else," Peeta explains.

"Well, congratulations, you two," Hazelle says, giving us each a warm hug. I'm grateful for one person who seems to be genuinely happy for us, but when we separate the stern expression on my mother's face hasn't changed.

"When were you planning on sharing the news?" my mother asks with acid in her voice.

I can feel my brow knit together as my gaze settles into a glare. I'm not a fan of her renewed hostility. "Why do you think we came over?"

"Are you already working on dinner?" Peeta asks, trying to cut the tension. His question makes me realize that I can smell food cooking. "We're having everyone over to our house later for the toasting."

"I thought you two have enough going on today without worrying about cooking for everyone. Consider it my wedding gift to you," Hazelle says.

I sigh, knowing that this is a gift I can't refuse now. Even though this meal was undoubtedly made with food from my mother's stocks, Hazelle's time spent cooking, time that could have been spent on washing for her clients in town, or mending the worn clothes of her four children, her time has enormous value. And there's no way I can give it back. Still, I say, "You didn't have to do that, Hazelle."

"That's what makes it a gift, dear," she explains patiently. Hazelle is used to my discomfort with gifts, and I have too much respect for her to really fight her on this. "Do you know how many I'm cooking for?"

I make a quick count in my head. "Um… As many as seventeen, depending on who shows up."

This gives my mother another chance to scoff. "You don't even know who's coming to this wedding?"

"We've had some less than firm commitments from some people," Peeta cuts in before I can snap at her.

"Will you be there?" I ask.

Mom seems to think for a moment before answering. "I haven't been invited yet."

I'm done. "Can you drop the petty sniping? I already had to deal with Peeta's mother today." This earns a chuckle from Peeta and a scowl from my mother. Clearly she doesn't like being compared to the town witch. I notice that Hazelle has disappeared back into the kitchen. "What happened to yesterday, when you had accepted that I was capable of making choices for my own life?" _As if I hadn't already been doing it for the last five years_ , I manage not to say out loud.

"What happened to not rushing into things?" she counters.

"We're not rushing things. This just… felt like the right time," I say.

"You don't think this is a little quick? You just met two months ago."

Why did my mother acquire an Effie Trinket-like sense of propriety at the same time that she suddenly decided to act like she has any say in my life? The combination is incredibly wearying. I don't bother to try to explain to her all the complexities of what Peeta meant to me even before the Games or how our relationship developed in the Games. Instead I just say, "We're in love and we're going to be together for the rest of our lives. Isn't that enough? What else are we supposed to be waiting for exactly?"

Unsatisfied with my response, she turns her attention to Peeta. "I must say, I had expected better from you, Peeta. What made you think it was appropriate to propose marriage so quickly?"

Peeta squirms for just a moment before I answer for him. "Peeta didn't propose," I say. "It was my idea to get married."

"Your idea?" My mother is shocked.

"Yes," I say. "We were having lunch with Gale and I told Peeta that I wanted to get married and that I wanted to do it today."

"Why would you do that?" she asks me.

"Because I wanted to get married," I say.

"But you never wanted to get married!" she says.

I've had this conversation too many times with Gale today to have it again with my mother now. Instead I close my eyes and begin massaging my forehead. "Not you too…"

"Katniss-"

I stand up, dragging Peeta with me. "Is Prim upstairs?" I ask.

"Why do you need Prim?" my mother asks.

"Because I'm sick of having to justify myself to everyone!" I say. "I want to go talk to someone who will just be happy that I'm happy." Even as I'm saying it, I change my mind. I don't want to talk to anyone, I just want to go home, and even after only a day the house I now share with Peeta is more my home than this house ever was. "You know what, forget it. I'll see Prim later. At least I can count on her coming to my wedding." My mother purses her lips, but doesn't say anything. "Show up, don't show up, whatever. Do what you want, Mom. It's not like you've ever really been there for me anyway; why should my wedding be any different?" I call out a goodbye to Hazelle as I swiftly exit, dragging Peeta behind me.

We don't say anything as we walk back to our house. Once inside, I don't resist when Peeta guides me to one of the couches in the living room. "Let's just sit for a minute, okay?" I let out a loud noise as I throw myself onto a couch, it begins as a grunt but somehow becomes a growl and then a scream of frustration by the time I finish exhaling. Peeta sits beside me mutely and I move over to lean into his body. I take several minutes to just enjoy the closeness, his body pressed against mine, his arm draped across my back. I try to let the sensation drive away my anger and frustration at my mother, but it doesn't really work. I let out another groan.

"Is she right?" I finally ask. "Are we doing this too quickly?"

Peeta is quiet for a long moment. "Do you think we're making a mistake?" he finally asks.

Ugh. I'm always doing this; letting my confused words make Peeta think the worst. I can tell I take him by surprise when I grab his face and kiss him as hard as I can. It's quickly become my go-to move when I can't explain myself. Peeta doesn't seem to mind; I can feel him smiling against my lips as his other arm snakes around me to hold us closer together.

"I can't imagine ever wanting to be anywhere but right here," I tell him once we separate.

"On this couch?" he asks.

"In your arms," I say.

I feel Peeta tighten his embrace for just a moment as he kisses my forehead. "I never want to be anywhere but by your side," he says, and my whole body fills with warmth at his sentiment. I can finally feel some of my frustration starting to ebb away. "So what's bothering you?" he asks.

It takes me almost a full minute to try to put my thoughts into words. "We've been married for an hour and I feel like we're already screwing it up."

"Well, neither of us has had an affair yet, so I say so far, so good," Peeta says, and despite everything else I'm feeling he manages to drag a laugh out of me. Still, I nudge him in the ribs. "So how do you think we're screwing up?" he asks.

I sigh. "Well, for one thing, the only person we've actually been able to tell about it is Haymitch. Everyone else seems to find out accidentally: Gale only knows because he was here, the Undersees only found out because they performed the ceremony, the Hawthornes were told by Gale, my family was told by Hazelle, and your family was told as part of a rebuttal to your mother, just to stop her from suggesting her favorite harpy from town for the job!"

My voice has steadily risen as I was talking, and by the end I'm almost shouting again. Peeta doesn't respond to my outburst at first, he just rubs my back for a bit and kisses my head again. After an extended silence he finally says a name. "Ivy Kendall."

"What?"

"Ivy Kendall," he repeats. "That's my mother's preferred harpy from town."

I think for a moment, for the time being embracing Peeta's blatant attempt to change the subject. "I don't think I ever knew her in school."

"She was in our year," Peeta says. "Her parents run the apothecary shop in town."

The apothecary shop? I jerk away from Peeta so I can look him in the face, to make sure he's not making this up. He looks concerned, whether at my sudden action or the look on my face. "You're joking," I say.

"No, I'm not," he says, still concerned. "She never objected to the idea of me dating someone else from town, but she's always pushed me to try to get close to Ivy. I actually did talk to her in school a bit, just to appease her."

I can't help it, I burst out laughing. It's not just the idea of Peeta's mother trying to fix him up with the apothecary's daughter, but that on the tail end of everything, that after our encounter with Mrs. Mellark today, that after our encounter with my mother earlier, it's like a dam's broken inside of me. I can't stop laughing. I'm crying with laughter. I'm hysterical with laughter. I'm laughing so hard that Peeta is actually concerned for my well being, he keeps asking if I'm okay. I try to nod to him, but somehow the look of concern on his face only makes me laugh harder.

It's a good few minutes before I get my laughing under control, and another minute before I can breathe more or less normally. "Katniss, what's going on?" Peeta asks, worry heavy in his voice. It's almost enough to set me off again.

"Peeta, you know my mother grew up in town, right?"

"Yes…" he says, still unsure where I'm going.

"Peeta, her parents ran the apothecary shop," I tell him.

Peeta's whole face goes slack. He manages to get out an astonished, "No…"

"This Ivy Kendall, she's probably my cousin. My real cousin," I say to differentiate her from the Hawthornes. "Odds are her parents are my aunt and uncle."

"And you don't know any of them?" Peeta asks, and I realize that maybe he doesn't know as much of my family history as I thought he did after he told me about his father and my mother.

"When my mother married a coal miner from the Seam, her town family completely disowned her. She never had contact with her parents again," I explain. "I don't even know if she had a brother or a sister, or if her birth name was Kendall or not, so I don't know if it's Ivy's mother or father that's my mother's sibling. But I'm betting one of them is."

"Wow," is all Peeta can say. I don't have a response. After a moment, Peeta shakes his head a bit and speaks again. "It was her father. I think. Who was related to your mother, I mean. When I was really young, before Ivy's parents took over the shop, the man who ran it was called Old Man Kendall. Ivy Kendall's father was Old Man Kendall's son, and I guess your mother's brother." Peeta looks away from me and shakes his head again. "So you're Old Man Kendall's granddaughter. Wow."

I don't know any of the people Peeta is talking about, and I don't really care about who my relatives are at the apothecary; they wanted nothing to do with me because they refused to accept my father, and anyone who had a problem with my father isn't worth my time. I didn't even go to the apothecary for help when Prim and I were dying. The actions of Mrs. Mellark, however, fascinate me. "I just can't get over it," I say. "Your father wanted to marry the apothecary's daughter, but she ran away with a coal miner, so he married your mother instead. And now your mother has been trying to pair you up with the apothecary's daughter?"

"Apparently," Peeta says. His face is still slack, his eyes are not focused on anything currently in the room with us.

"What would her father have thought of that?" I wonder out loud. "His daughter, together with the son of the man his sister refused. And what was your mother trying to do? Did she think you'd fall for the apothecary's daughter like your father did? Was it some kind of sick joke? Was it just a coincidence?"

Peeta seems to come back to reality; he turns and looks straight at me. "I don't want to know," he says emphatically. "My mother has done plenty of crazy things to my life, and this certainly ranks up there, but I don't want to know what her reasons were. I don't want to know what goes on in that woman's head." Peeta takes my face in both of his hands and kisses me passionately. I moan into the kiss, wrapping my arms around his neck and melding myself into his body. When we break apart, Peeta says, "We're together now. I don't care what came before, I don't care what my mother was trying to do. You and me, that's all that matters."

I smile at my husband. "You and me," I agree, before kissing him again.

Eventually we break apart, and Peeta backs away a bit. "As much as I'd love to spend the rest of the day sitting here kissing my beautiful wife, I really do need to get started on our cake."

"We can do without a cake," I say, and try to kiss him again, but Peeta stops me.

"Oh, no," he says, "after all these years of decorating everyone else's cakes, there's no way I'm not making my own wedding cake."

"You'd rather bake a cake than kiss me?" I ask, and I do my best to pout.

Peeta just grins at me. "Wow. Katniss Everdeen: Temptress. Never thought I'd see that." I blush at his description, but I smile as well. "I'll gladly spend the next hundred years kissing you," he says as he stands, "but for the next few hours I have to work on something else." Then he turns and heads to the kitchen before I can object again.

I sigh, and follow Peeta into the kitchen. "Can I help?"

"No!" he says cheerfully. "You can't see the cake until we serve it tonight."

Peeta is so excited about this cake, I don't even try to fight him on it. Instead I busy myself with making sure the rest of the house is prepared for later; tidying up the living room for the toasting, preparing the dining room for dinner.

At one point Peeta pops in from the kitchen. "What kind of bread do you want to use for the toasting?"

I shrug my shoulders. "Just regular bread."

Peeta pauses for just a moment before asking again. "I wasn't sure if maybe you wanted to use a raisin-nut loaf."

I ponder this for a moment before shaking my head. "No. That'd be wrong."

This seems to intrigue Peeta. "Wrong?"

I try to answer, but I fumble for the right words. "I'm not sure if I can explain it right," I finally say before plowing along. "I don't- I owe you so much, I owe you my life. But this isn't some sort of debt payment. I didn't marry you because you gave me bread, or because you fought Cato, or because you help me with the nightmares. I married you because I love you. And I love you because…" I run out of words again. I completely denied the possibility of love until a month ago, now I'm supposed to be able to explain it? "I don't know, because you're you. Not because of anything you did, because of who you are." Ugh. Why does it feel like I'm always trying to explain things I don't fully understand myself? "I just feel like, toasting with the same bread you gave me that day would make it seem like I'm marrying you because you saved me. And that's not the way it is."

I can't imagine that Peeta actually understands what I'm trying to say, because frankly I barely understand what I'm trying to say, but he nods as if he does. "So just a regular loaf? Nothing special?"

There's disappointment in Peeta's voice, but I nod back at him, because he's right, that's exactly what I want. "The bread's not the thing that makes our toasting special," I tell him. He just nods again and leaves back into the kitchen.

I let out a breath. The feeling that I've disappointed Peeta eats at me. I want to fix it, to follow him into the kitchen and say something to make him feel better, but I have no idea what that would be. So I stay where I am.

Eventually people begin to arrive. The first are Hazelle and Prim, both laden down with pots and dishes of food. I feel bad all over again that Hazelle has gone to so much trouble for me. They both give me hurried greetings over their shoulders as they head to the kitchen to drop off their loads. Hazelle comes back out almost immediately to hug and congratulate again before returning to the kitchen.

Prim stays in the kitchen for quite some time. I'm beginning to feel annoyed that everyone is in there but me when Prim comes out. She almost tackles me with the force of the hug she gives me. "I can't believe you're getting married! You have to tell me _everything!_ "

Prim grills me on every detail of my impromptu marriage. It doesn't seem like much of a story to me, but it puts a huge smile on her face, and seeing Prim smile like that puts one on my face as well. Eventually Peeta joins us - "The cakes are in the oven; Hazelle has a handle on things in the kitchen." - and has more to say on the subject than I do.

Prim doesn't share our mother's surprise that the marriage was my idea. "I always thought that when you got married, you would be the one to suggest it. Whoever you were with would have to be pretty stupid to spring it on you by surprise, and I didn't think you'd be with someone stupid," she says. Peeta laughs out loud at her statement, and even I smile a bit. Then she adds, "Of course, there was always a chance that Gale would have done it anyway."

I'm so sick of having this conversation today that I'm regretting having guests over for the toasting at all. "Was I the only one who knew I wasn't going to marry Gale?"

"I think so, dear," Hazelle says, just entering the room. I cringe a bit, knowing she heard my outburst. I haven't even thought of what Hazelle might be thinking or feeling. Here she is cooking a meal to serve at my toasting; did she expect me to marry her son one day? Is she surprised I'm not? Is she disappointed? Hazelle isn't quick to anger like Gale and I are, but she has an iron will – she and her four kids wouldn't have survived the death of her husband if she didn't.

"Those cakes of yours look like they're about ready to come out," she says to Peeta as she approaches the couches where we're all seated.

"Cakes?" I ask, turning to Peeta. How many of the things is he making?

Peeta just smiles at me. "Back to work," he says, planting a quick kiss on my lips before leaving again. Hazelle takes a seat next to Prim.

Prim looks quickly between Hazelle and I before standing. "I'm going to see if I can give Peeta a hand," she says before leaving for the kitchen. She's always had more tact than I do.

I huff out a breath. "I don't know what Gale told you…"

"Gale rarely tells me anything," Hazelle says in a resigned tone. "Thinks he's being a burden, I suppose. But it's okay. A mother always knows."

Inside, I scoff. I can't help but think about my own mother, and how little she seems to know me. Hazelle probably knows me better. Which makes sense, since in the past few years I've probably spent more time with Hazelle than with my own mother.

But Hazelle did know, I realize. "At dinner the other night, you knew what was going to happen."

"I warned that boy he was headed for a heartbreak," she says. "He insisted it was all an act, that you would never fall for Peeta Mellark. Wouldn't hear a word spoken otherwise."

"He still insists that," I say. Hazelle just shakes her head at Gale's obstinance.

"To tell you the truth, I'm kind of relieved," she says. This brings me up short. She's relieved? Here I am thinking of her as practically a surrogate parent, and she's relieved we didn't wind up related for real? My questions must show on my face, because she quickly explains. "Gale may have wanted a marriage, but I could tell that you never did. I've never once seen you look at my Gale the way you look at that boy in the kitchen."

I can feel myself flush with embarrassment at how easily she can read me, and how obvious I am whenever I'm around Peeta. I quietly ask, "If that's all true, then why did you think we'd wind up married?"

Hazelle sighs lightly. "Because what else were you going to do?" she says, her voice tinged with sorrow and resignation. "Once you aged out of the reapings, you would have needed to find some legal work. You wouldn't have both gone to work in the mines separately when you could have teamed up so that only one of you had to go. Plus Gale would need a wife so he could be assigned his own house and not be crammed in with the rest of us anymore, and I don't think for one second you would have let him marry some other girl. You would have convinced yourself that it was just an extension of your hunting partnership, and you would have married him."

The horrible thing is, Hazelle may well be right. When I think back to how I approached things before the Games, I could see myself doing just that. I never wanted to get married, but it wasn't the signing of the document I opposed. I never wanted children, and I never wanted to be weakened by love like my mother was. I saw avoiding marriage as a way to survive, but what if the opposite became true?

Gale is my best friend. I am his. We've been fighting together for our families' survival for years. Would I be willing to marry him if I somehow saw it as a part of that fight? Not have children, not fall in love with him, but just marry him? The answer is obvious: I'd do anything to protect my family.

But it wouldn't have ended there. Gale would want a real marriage. Gale would want me to love him. Gale would want children. Could I have ever given him those things?

Children would be absolutely out of the question, I never would and never will have a child who would have to enter the reaping. But what about the rest? I try to mentally place myself into that situation. What would my life be like if I was never reaped, if I never met Peeta. More importantly, what would I be like? Could I have grown to love Gale eventually? Or would the anger and division of this morning have happened to us anyway, growing slowly over time rather than exploding into being?

In my gut, I know the answer. I've known Gale for four years now. It took me all of one month to fall in love with Peeta. Even excepting the extraordinary circumstances surrounding my relationship with Peeta, if I was ever going to feel something for Gale I would have felt it by now. Two more years and a marriage of convenience wouldn't have turned friendship into love.

Hazelle seems to have come to the same conclusion, despite the fact that I haven't given voice to any of my thoughts. "You would have both been miserable," she says. "You can't go into a marriage with two people wanting such different things. He would want you to love him and you would just be trying to survive. Even if you grew to love him later, it wouldn't be how he wanted it. He would be disappointed and you would feel guilty for it. You would have both been miserable."

I find myself nodding, because Hazelle's thoughts align with my own. "Do you think he'll come today?"

"I don't know," she says. "I made him promise to walk the kids over later, I don't want them walking through town on their own. But will he stay? I don't know."

I don't know what to say to that. Gale's been my friend and partner for years. I've never really given thought to a time when that would not be the case, but it seems my falling in love with someone else has made the unthinkable into reality.

"I never meant to hurt him," I say.

Hazelle sighs before responding. "Sometimes people get hurt, and there's nothing we could have done to prevent it and it's nobody's fault. But they still hurt." I find myself nodding along with her. I have to admit to myself that I have no control over this situation. Gale will either come around or he won't. The only thing I could do to placate him would be to deny how I feel about Peeta and string Gale along for a while. Ultimately it's better this way, with all truths out in the open. And if Gale ends our friendship over it… well, I guess this would have happened anyway.

Hazelle and I seem to have run out of things to say. We've been silent for several minutes when the front door slams open and someone can be heard stumbling their way into the entrance hall. I just shake my head at the commotion, but Hazelle looks genuinely startled. "That's just Haymitch," I say.

I make sure I hear the door close behind Haymitch before he appears in the room with us. His look has definitely deteriorated since the Capitol attendants went home: His untucked shirt is wrinkled like he just grabbed it off the floor, and there's a large stain on his pants where he spilled some kind of red drink. But he at least appears to have washed himself, if the large damp patch where his hair hits his shirt is any indication.

Compared to the first night on the train when he passed out in a pool of his own vomit, he looks positively stylish. But Hazelle, without that experience to compare to, looks horrified at his appearance. Her horror only increases when Haymitch plops down on the other end of the couch from her, withdraws a flask from his pocket, and takes a long pull.

Despite how distracted my mind is, snapping at Haymitch comes naturally to me. "You'd better ration that stuff," I warn him. "You know that's the only liquor in this house."

"Thought this was supposed to be a celebration," he says.

"Some of us like to remember our celebrations the next day," I say. Haymitch makes a face, and takes another drink from his flask.

Hazelle stands quickly, and backs up several steps to put some distance between herself and Haymitch. "I think I'd better check the stew," she explains.

I can understand her reluctance to deal with my drunken mentor. "Thank you," I tell her before she leaves. "For everything." She gives me a faint smile to let me know she understands, before vanishing back into the kitchen.

"I get the impression she doesn't like me," Haymitch says dryly.

I don't feel like sparring with Haymitch. "Peeta's in the kitchen," I say, assuming he would want to go see him, but he stays where he is.

"So," he says after a moment, "the two of you are really getting married."

"Technically we already did. Forms are signed," I say.

"Didn't think you had it in you," he says. "Thought you'd break his heart at the first opportunity." I scowl at him, but I don't say anything. After a long moment, and another pull from his flask, he speaks again. "You know, before the Games, when he told me he wanted to use his interview to help you, when he said he wanted you to be the one to win? I thought you could live a hundred lifetimes and never deserve him."

I shrug. "Well, you're probably right about that."

"No, I wasn't." I look up in surprise to find him staring directly back at me. "I underestimated you. Both of you. You two deserve each other."

I'm surprised by how much Haymitch's statement means to me. In some ways, he knows Peeta and I better than anyone now. And as much as he can be a drunken oaf at times, he's also shown himself to be a very smart operator. "You don't think we're moving too fast?" I ask, letting my insecurities free for a moment.

Haymitch shrugs. "Maybe. But so what? Every moment after that gong sounds is a precious gift. Best not to be wasting any of them."

The fact that Haymitch's thinking so closely mirrors mine shouldn't surprise me anymore, but it does reassure me a bit. "Can you tell my mother that?"

"Even if I tried, you know she'd never understand. Not the way we do." The way he says this is so different from his usual gruff demeanor, I feel like I'm talking to the real Haymitch for the first time.

"What do you deserve?" I ask.

For just a moment I think he may actually answer, but then his usual mask slips back into place . "Well for one thing, I deserve a day or two of peace. You kids are dragging me out to some damned thing almost as often now as before the cameras left. You'd think after saving both your lives I'd at least warrant some downtime." I don't have any idea how to respond to Haymitch's sudden change in personality, and the sound of another arrival at the door saves me from trying to come up with one.

I open the door to find Delly Cartwright on the other side. As always, she gives me a smile that suggests I'm her best friend in the world. She gives this smile to everyone. "Katniss!" she calls out, even though we're all of 18 inches apart.

"Hey, Delly," I say, motioning for her to come inside.

I don't have the chance to say anything else before she springs through the door and pulls me into a big bear hug. "I'm so excited for you guys!" she squeals.

"Um, thanks, Delly," I answer. I look over her shoulder and see Haymitch watching us from the doorway to the living room. By the look on his face, he's too stunned by Delly to come up with a sarcastic comment, and that makes me fight to not laugh out loud.

Finally Delly releases me and steps back. I decide this is one introduction I'm actually going to enjoy. "Delly, do you know Haymitch?" I ask, gesturing to my mentor. "Haymitch, this is Peeta's friend Delly Cartwright."

Haymitch cocks an eyebrow. "His 'friend,' eh?"

I roll my eyes at him. "Yes, Haymitch, his friend. Get your mind out of the gutter."

"We played together from when we were little," Delly explains. "I used to tell people he was my brother."

"We were all in the same class. But we never overlapped much," I say.

"Katniss was always so amazing, I never dreamed she would notice me," says Delly. "The way she could hunt and go in the Hob and everything. Everyone admired her so."

Haymitch and I both have to take a hard look at her face to double-check if she's joking. To hear Delly describe it, I had next to no friends because I intimidated people by being so exceptional. Not true. I had next to no friends because I wasn't friendly. Leave it to Delly to spin me into something wonderful.

"Delly always thinks the best of everyone," I explain.

Haymitch just grunts at us. Then his face seems to light in memory. "Delly Cartwright? Thought you were a skinny redhead."

Delly looks confused, and she turns to me for an explanation. "In the Capitol, Peeta said one of the Avoxes looked like you. It… was kind of a joke."

"What's an Avox?" she asks.

"Capitol criminal who's had their tongue cut out," I say without thinking, and almost immediately regret it.

I'm used to talking to Peeta or Haymitch, survivors of the arena. Even before that, the only person I really talked to was Gale, cold blooded hunter. I don't need to worry about saying more to them than they can handle. But Delly looks absolutely aghast at my explanation, as if it's never occurred to her that the government that reaps us into the Hunger Games could be so cruel as to create Avoxes. "I'll never understand the Capitol," she says once she regains control of her jaw.

"Better not to, maybe," I tell her. "Why don't you go see Peeta in the kitchen?" She nods shakily and escapes.

"Charming as ever, Sweetheart," Haymitch says. I ignore him.

The house is starting to fill up now. Hazelle, Prim, and Delly all filter between keeping an eye on the food cooking and the living room where I've been exiled. Peeta spends most of his time holed away in the kitchen working on his precious cake, only occasionally popping out to see how the rest of us are doing. Haymitch makes inappropriate comments from his spot on the couch and takes increasingly infrequent sips from his flask.

Soon enough Madge and her father arrive, toting several trays of bite-sized snacks that were probably prepared by the cook who works in the mayor's house. They had these at the events Peeta and I have been attending since we got home; the Capitol people are so decadent that they need food to eat while waiting for a meal to begin. But they do smell delicious, and they serve to occupy people better than my awkward attempts at conversation.

Next to arrive are the Mellark men, with several loaves of bread and a sack of rolls. With everyone bringing dishes to contribute to the meal, this is starting to feel like an old-fashioned Seam potluck. That idea that makes me feel better about accepting the gifts. Mrs. Mellark is nowhere to be seen, and I don't know if I'm relieved or disappointed by that. Weirdly enough, I think it's both.

Several minutes after his father and brothers arrive, Peeta emerges from the kitchen. He sits by me where I've managed to separate myself from the rest of our visitors for a moment. "Cake's done," he announces. "It's in the cooler so the frosting can set up a bit."

"Does that mean I'm allowed back in the kitchen again?" I ask.

"Only if you promise not to peek," he says. I bump his shoulder lightly.

We watch as his father comes out to the living room to greet Prim, Hazelle, Haymitch, and the Undersees. "My mother isn't feeling well tonight," Peeta says.

"Don't make excuses for her," I snap, suddenly angry. Peeta turns to look at me as I try to calm myself. "We only lie to each other when we have to on camera, right?"

"Right," he says.

"Then don't tell me your mother isn't feeling well. Don't cover for her anymore," I say. "She doesn't deserve it."

Peeta's quiet after that. After another minute his brothers come out from the kitchen. Rye shakes his head and says, "I can't believe he did all of that in an afternoon."

"You know Peeta," Barlee replies to him.

I look over at Peeta in question, but he just grins at me. After another minute, he speaks up. "You know my mother… I bet she would have come if she knew she could have monopolized the mayor's time." We both laugh at that.

Eventually Peeta and I get sucked back into the group. These people are all my friends, but I still find social interaction tiring, so I'm glad to have the excuse to leave when the door sounds again. I'm still chuckling at something Rye said when I open the door, but my laugh dies in my throat when I find my mother on the other side.

"Mom," I say, and stop myself there. I don't know what I want to say, or what kind of receptive mood she'll be in.

"Hello, Katniss," she says simply.

For a moment we're both frozen, standing here staring at each other, until another round of laughs from the living room interrupts the moment. "Come on in," I say. I back up a few steps to allow her to enter, and find myself bumping into Haymitch.

"I'm heading back to my place for reinforcements," he says, waggling his empty flask at me as he maneuvers past my mother and out the door. I don't bother to respond, I just roll my eyes as he closes the door behind him.

I'm left alone in the entrance hall with my mother. "Hi," I say dumbly, then flounder, unable to come up with another word to say to her right now.

The silence drags on for what feels like forever before she speaks to break it. "I came over here to apologize, Katniss. I don't want us to be angry with each other over this. I promised myself I would never let that happen."

I have no idea how to respond to this, so I don't. After a moment to gather herself she goes on. "When I married your father, my parents didn't approve. They threw me out, disowned me, and I never spoke to them again. I swore I would never do that to my girls." She pauses again, but again I have nothing to say. "You were right yesterday, you're not eleven anymore. You're not 22 either, but I guess maybe I've lost the right to tell you that."

"You have," I confirm for her. She merely nods in acquiescence.

"I have to accept that I can't protect you from all the mistakes you're about to make."

"We're not making a mistake," I say.

"Of course you are," she says quickly. "You're sixteen, you're supposed to make mistakes. That's what being a teenager is for, to make all the mistakes you'll learn from when you're older. It's hard to watch your children making mistakes and not try to correct them, but I'm going to do my best from now on. Because I don't want us to wind up like my family, no matter what happens."

I can't help but think about Peeta's revelations from earlier. "Does your family still run the apothecary?" I ask.

She seems surprised by my question, but after a moment she nods. "My brother and his wife. They have a daughter I've never even met."

So Peeta was right. I've never given much thought to my town relatives - you can't miss what you've never had, as the old Seam saying goes - but at this moment I can't help but find it sad that I have an entire family of relatives who I've never met. Even worse, my mother has a brother she hasn't seen in twenty years. Could that ever happen to Prim and me? Even the thought is horrifying. No matter how drastically things have changed recently, I can't ever imagine my life without Prim. "I don't want that to happen to us either," I say. "You and Prim are my family, that will never change. I would never want it to. But Peeta is my family too."

She absorbs this for a long moment. She almost seems to be fighting a smile. "He really is a nice boy, isn't he?"

"He really is," I say.

"I knew his father when we were younger. He was always a good man."

I my mind, all I see is Mr. Mellark in the bakery this morning, cringing and uncomfortable but ultimately passive and powerless as his wife was about to harm his son. Again. He certainly didn't place himself between his loved ones and danger the way Peeta did in the Games. "He's better than his father."

My mother seems surprised by the vehemence in my voice, but luckily for me a loud knock on the door interrupts us before she can comment. I don't know why Haymitch is knocking now when he didn't knock the first time, but I try not to waste too much of my time trying to explain the actions of Haymitch. "Why don't you go on inside? I need to get the door." She hesitates for just a moment, but she reaches out and gives my arm a quick squeeze before going into the living room.

Another knock sounds from the door. "Calm down, you old drunk!" I call as I approach the door. "What happened, you had too much to drink and you can't figure out how to work the doorknob anymore?"

I have a smug smirk on my face as I throw the door open, but it falls away when Gale, Rory, Vick, and Posy are revealed on the other side.

"Gale can't use a door knob!" Posy chirps happily.

"Not when he's this drunk," Vick snarks from behind his brother. Gale looks at me as if I've betrayed him.

"Sorry. I thought you were Haymitch."

Gale says nothing, just hooks a thumb over his shoulder. When I look over in that direction, I see Haymitch making his way up the street, carrying two bottles of white liquor.

"No!" I say in a stern voice as I lift my arm to point at him, almost exactly like Prim does with Buttercup when he scratches up the furniture. "Flask, yes. Bottle, no."

"I was gonna share," Haymitch grumbles as he turns around and heads back to his house. I shake my head before turning back to Gale.

"Come on in guys, everybody's in the living room," I say, gesturing to the right doorway.

The kids all head in that direction, but Gale lingers behind as I close the door behind them. "Can we talk, Catnip?"

It takes a real effort not to groan out loud. I've done far too much talking today already, as far as I'm concerned. But Gale is my closest friend. At least, I hope he is. "Sure. How about we go out back?" I can't shake the feeling that in this situation I'm somehow the prey, and I don't want to be closed up in here with Gale.

As we pass through the living room, everyone seems to be getting along fine. Posy has curled up on her mother's lap as the two of them chat with Madge. Rory and Prim seem to be in their own little world. I'll have to keep my eye on that. Mr. Mellark and Barlee talk quietly in a corner, while Rye is joking around with Vick. I can't imagine Gale is pleased to see that, but I know that Rye is ultimately harmless.

Peeta is nowhere to be seen.

As I head towards the kitchen, I overhear my mother talking to Mayor Undersee, of all people.

"Horace."

"It's been a long time, Violet."

"How is Elaan doing?"

"This time of year is always hard for her."

In the kitchen I find Peeta washing a baking pan. "You know, today of all days, I'm pretty sure you could find someone else to do that for you."

He looks up and just smiles at me. I can see in his eyes when he takes note of Gale's presence behind me. He sets the pan aside to dry and begins toweling off his hands. "Are you offering?"

"I was thinking more of Prim or Hazelle."

"Nah, they've done more than enough today. Besides, I needed a break from everyone for a minute." He walks over to stand in front of me. I'm expecting a kiss, but instead he steps to the side and reaches an arm past me. "Hey, Gale. Thanks for coming."

Gale doesn't say anything, but he shakes Peeta's hand. "What are you up to?" Peeta asks me.

"Gale wants to talk," I say. Based on Peeta's reaction, he seems to have expected something like this. "We're just gonna head out back for a few minutes." I quickly cut my eyes to the window over the sink, the one that looks out into the yard behind the house. Peeta narrows his eyes slightly, as if he's asking me if I'm sure about what I'm asking him. I nod my head as slightly as I can manage.

"Okay. I have a few more pans to wash," Peeta says, nodding his head over at the sink. And the window over it.

"Good," I say with a nod. He steps back and moves towards the sink. I turn and lead Gale outside.

"Do you want to sit on the porch?" I ask.

"Let's go out closer to the trees," Gale says. Now that we're outside, alone, I put several feet of distance between us as we walk. As soon as we stop walking, Gale steps towards me trying to close the distance. When I take a step back from him, he shoots me an angry look.

"Are you scared of me now, Catnip?" he asks.

"I don't want you to try to kiss me again," I tell him honestly.

He doesn't say anything in response, just gives me another look. I decide I don't want to wait for him. "Gale, what happened yesterday?" I ask him

"What do you mean?" he says.

"When we spoke on Friday, you were okay. Disappointed, but okay. You even said you were happy for me. Then this morning…" I don't even know how to describe the conversation we had this morning. "Well, this morning. So what changed? What happened yesterday to change things?"

Gale sighs heavily. "I guess I just had a day to rethink everything. I thought about what you said the other night, and it makes no sense to me. I know you, and you saying those things makes no sense. The only way I can explain it is that you're lying to me."

At least I was right when I said that Gale didn't trust me anymore. "I'm not," I tell him, trying not to sound defensive. I don't know how successful I am.

"Well of course you'd say that," he says.

"Gale, seriously. I'm not lying to you. I've never lied to you about any of this. I can't even say that to Peeta, but I can say it to you."

This seems to attract Gale's interest. He looks a bit confused when he asks, "You're lying to him?"

I may as well lay it all out in the open, I think. "I lied to him in the arena, when he was in love and I wanted sponsors. I lied to him in our interviews, when he was in love and I was trying to appease the Capitol. Then on the train home I made him think the whole thing had been an act and none of my feelings were real."

Gale's confusion deepens. "So you lied to him by pretending to love him and then you lied by saying it had all been pretend? They can't both be lies."

"But they were," I say. "It's… complicated."

"Well, getting married is sure to simplify things," he snarks.

"I actually thought it would," I admit. "I thought maybe it would at least clarify things for anyone who was still confused about our relationship."

Gale just shakes his head. "I still have trouble believing you're in a relationship," he says.

"You're not the only one," I say. "Heck, it threw me for a loop at first."

Gale squints his eyes slightly, almost as if he's studying me. "We've spent a lot of time together over the years. I know you, Katniss, better than anyone. Almost better than I know my own family. I can tell when you're being genuine and when you're lying."

"And what do you see now?"

He shakes his head again. "That's the thing, I can't tell anymore. The whole time you were in the Games, it was confusing me, cause one minute you'd be awkward and forced and fake, and then the next you'd be completely different, completely genuine. It was like flipping a coin, trying to predict which one you would be n any given moment."

"That's pretty much exactly what happened," I said. "I was trying to fake it, to sell the storyline. But then I kept forgetting that it was only supposed to be a storyline."

"Those interviews you did, it was the same thing. You'd be simpering and swooning and completely hamming it up, and then you'd be Katniss again. Except you'd be looking at that merchant the way I only ever dreamed you'd look at me."

I don't know how to address Gale's heartbreak, so I don't. "So what you're saying is that you can see for yourself the exact same thing that I've been trying to tell you. So why do you still refuse to believe it?"

"I can't just give you up, Catnip," he says. "I can't just let Baker Boy take you away from me."

"I was never _yours_ , Gale," I say a bit testily. "I'm not an object to be given up or some prize to be won or lost. I'm a person, capable of making my own choices."

"And you choose him," Gale says bitterly.

It occurs to me that I had this exact discussion with Peeta this morning, and I wonder how much of that Gale overheard. "If you make me choose, then yes, I choose him." Gale doesn't say anything in response to this, so I push on. "Gale, I'm sorry you fell in love with someone who doesn't love you back. But you need to accept it," I tell him.

"You do love me," he says plaintively.

I shake my head. "Like a brother. Like a friend. There's only one man I'm _in_ love with, and that's my husband."

Gale still reacts to me calling Peeta my husband almost as if he's been physically struck. I hate seeing my friend hurt like this, but it's inevitable. The only alternative would be for me to deny my feelings for Peeta and somehow string Gale along with the false hope that I may one day return his feelings, but that would just leave all three of us miserable. There's no way Peeta or I could ever be happy without each other, not since the cave, and I was a fool for even momentarily considering it on that train.

"So where does that leave us, Katniss?" Gale asks. I belatedly realize that neither of us has spoken for about half a minute.

"I think that's up to you," I say. "What kind of relationship do you want to have with Katniss Mellark?"

Now Gale really does look like I've punched him. He actually staggers for a moment. But I barely notice, because in my head all I can focus on is this new identity I now have. _Katniss Mellark_. This day has been such a whirlwind that the thought hasn't occurred to me before this moment, but that's who I am now, Katniss Mellark. The thought makes me feel warm inside. Now I really do feel like a lovesick schoolgirl, writing her boyfriend's name inside a heart in her notebook instead of paying attention to the day's lesson on coal. Well, I am sixteen, if not for the Games I would still actually be a schoolgirl.

What would it have been like to love Peeta in a normal life where we were never in the Games? Would I sit in class doodling _PM+KE_ on everything? I can't imagine myself doing that, but I could never have imagined myself doing most of the things I've been doing lately. Would I spend my days jealous of all the blonde-haired, blue-eyed town girls who fawned all over him? Even worse, would I have to join him in hanging out with those people in school? Would we publicly flout the merchant-Seam divide like my parents did? Or would we sneak around to try to hide our relationship from his mother, meeting in secret and dreaming of the day we could reveal the truth about our relationship?

I'm broken out of my reverie by Gale finally forming a response to my question. "I can't believe you're changing your name. It's like you really are becoming a whole new person."

"I have a whole new life now," I tell him. "I have money. I have a huge house. Prim will never starve. I'll never starve. You would never starve if you'd stop being so stubborn and let me help your family."

"We don't need your charity," he snaps.

I roll my eyes at him, even though deep down I know I would say the exact same thing in his place. "It's the Capitol's money, more than I could ever spend. Might as well put it to good use."

"I don't want anything from the Capitol," he says.

"That didn't stop you from taking your share on Parcel Day, did it?" It's a low blow, but it has the desired effect of deflating his indignation, and I can't help but pile on. "Did you enjoy giving Posy those little bags of candy? And I hear from Hazelle that you really liked something called cauliflower." The Parcel Day deliveries contained lots of types of food we never see in the Seam, and that was one of them. I've read through my family's plant book many times, I know about all kinds of flowers, but I've never heard of a cauliflower. It must only grow in another district. "You're welcome," I add as a final dig.

Gale's shoulders sink, as if he finds this conversation as wearying as I do. "What do you want from me?"

"I want my best friend. I want my hunting partner. Cause with everything that's different in my life right now, that's the one thing I thought would never change."

Gale is quiet for a long time. "I'll… I'll try, Katniss. I can't make any promises, but I'll try."

I know that's the best I'm going to get right now, so I just say, "Okay."

He takes a step toward me, and I reflexively step back. He smiles sadly at me. "It's just a hug, Catnip." I don't really want to hug him right now, I feel like it's promising something I'm not willing to give. But I hold still and let him close the distance between us and wrap his arms around me, only half-heartedly returning the gesture. His body is still familiar to me from years of learning its movements, but his embrace feels alien to me now that I've become so used to the feel of Peeta's arms.

So I stand stiffly in Gale's hug until he finally releases me and steps back. I sort of nod awkwardly, then begin walking back toward the house.

Peeta meets us on the porch. "Everything all right?" he asks me.

Instead of answering, I just hug him to me and hold on for a long moment. "I think so," I say as I step back.

Gale moves to stand directly in front of Peeta. I move slightly to the side as the two men face one another.

"Mellark," Gale says by way of greeting.

"Gale," Peeta says in response.

"She deserves better than you," Gale states flatly.

Peeta seems surprised by the statement, but replies after only a brief moment. "She deserves whatever she wants. And she deserves the support of her friends and family."

Gale seems to stop to think for a moment before nodding to himself. "If you ever do anything to hurt her, I'll kill you," he says.

"Likewise," Peeta replies.

Gale blinks. Clearly that wasn't the answer he was expecting. He opens his mouth to respond, but I interrupt before this can escalate any further. "If you two are done posturing, maybe we could go inside and actually enjoy the party?"

Peeta seems to recoil slightly. "I, um, I have some pans to finish."

"I'll help," I say, following him in.

In the kitchen, my mother is stirring a pot of stew. "I can take over, Mrs. Everdeen," Peeta says. She smiles and gives his hand a quick squeeze before leaving.

Gale is hovering by the door rather than continuing on to the living room. "You'd better get in there," I say. "I think I saw Posy talking to Haymitch before." Gale's eyes widen slightly before he finally leaves.

The only sound left is Peeta at the sink. I take over stirring the stew.

"I'm sorry I overstepped earlier," Peeta says.

"You didn't."

"I know you don't need me to speak for you."

"Have you heard me try to speak?" I say.

The joke has the desired effect; he smiles lightly. "You know what I mean. I didn't mean to talk over you."

"You didn't," I repeat. "You weren't doing anything wrong. I just don't think challenging Gale is the best idea right now. Times like this it's best to let him go and lick his wounds for a while."

Peeta makes a non-committal noise, and returns his concentration to the dish he's been scrubbing this whole time. I let the silence drag on until he's drying his hands, then I move a bit closer and bump him with my hip. "Hey," I say.

"Hey," he says back, and finally looks up to flash me a smile.

"I realized something while I was talking with Gale," I say.

Peeta cocks an eyebrow at me. "Oh, yeah?" he says.

"Yeah," I say. "I'm Katniss Mellark now."

Peeta smiles what may be the biggest smile I've ever seen on a person. "Katniss Mellark," he says, talking to himself more than he's talking to me.

I can't help but laugh a little. "Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction too."

Peeta sobers far more quickly than I would have liked. "You don't have to change your name. You know, if you don't want to, you don't have to. I wouldn't ask you to."

The idea brings me up short, because truly it had never occurred to me. I know that technically it's not required. It's not part of the standard marriage forms, there's a whole separate name change form that I had to fill out this afternoon. "Already filled out the form for it."

"The mayor's right here," Peeta says. "You could go ask him not to file that one."

I shake my head. "What are you trying to say, Peeta? Do you want me not to change my name?" He seemed pleased with the idea when I first brought it up, so where is this opposition coming from?

He sighs heavily, and finally turns to face me fully. "I'm saying, you don't have to change your name just because it's expected. I know how important your family is to you, I wouldn't ask you to give that up."

"What makes you think I'm giving anything up? I'll still be an Everdeen, nothing will change that. But now I'll be something else, too. Now I'll be Katniss Mellark."

I can see the way his eyes brighten when I say the name; I know he likes the idea. With a deep breath he places his hands on my waist and rests his forehead against mine. "If you're sure," he says.

I nod against his head. "I want to be Katniss Mellark," I say. "If that's okay with you?"

Peeta barks out a laugh. "Okay with me? I've only been dreaming of the name Katniss Mellark since I learned how names work."

I have to shake my head at him, but then I lean up and quickly brush our lips together. "You're really horrible at asking for what you want, you know that?"

"I couldn't ask for that."

"You could," I say. "I'm not exactly good at figuring out what people are thinking. If you don't start asking for the things you want, you may be in for a pretty unhappy marriage."

"Never," he breathes against my face. "As long as I get to spend every day with you, I could never be unhappy."

"Well, I'm glad you're so easy to please," I say.

"You still don't know the effect you have on me."

"Well, you'll just have to show me," I say.

"You two are so cute."

We break apart to find Prim watching us from the doorway. "It's getting kind of conspicuous that this toasting party is missing the toasting couple. You might want to go say hi to some of your guests."

"Um, I was stirring the stew," I say weakly.

"Yes, I could tell how much attention you were paying to the stew," she replies, and there's nothing about this conversation that makes me comfortable having it with my twelve-year-old sister. "I'll watch the stew. You two go enjoy your party."

I take Peeta's hand and head for the living room, as much to end the discussion as for any other reason.

…..

The evening goes surprisingly smoothly, given the mix of people involved. Posy is growing up in a house with three older brothers, so she quickly gravitates towards Madge and Delly, both of whom are only too happy to entertain the precocious young girl. Rory seems to be primarily interested in monopolizing Prim's time, even going so far as to trail after her when she heads off to help Hazelle with the food. My mother and Peeta's father and Mayor Undersee all seem to have known each other in the old days, before one of them became a Capitol representative and one of them was banished from town. Peeta's brothers are primarily interested in embarrassing Peeta, which Gale enjoys a bit more than I appreciate, but every story they share involves his years-long crush on me, and I love hearing those stories. Vick winds up talking for a while with Haymitch, about what I can not imagine. Gale is concerned that my mentor might give the boy some of his white liquor, but with how little we let him bring over I doubt he'd be willing to share.

We enjoy a wonderful dinner, not as fancy as the Capitol feasts we've been paraded through lately but every bit as delicious and twice as satisfying because it was prepared by people who love and respect us. And after dinner, Peeta takes the remaining heel of a loaf from the table - a loaf he himself prepared earlier, a loaf we shared with all of our closest family and friends - and we make our way over to the living room fireplace, where someone has already laid out a small rug in front of the hearth for us to kneel on. Peeta and I restart the fire that had gone out while we were in the other room eating. Together, we hold the heel of bread over the flame, our fingers mingling together as we turn the bread over the heat. We probably toast it too far, the bread is very dry and crusty by the time we pull it back, but the gesture feels so good, so intimate, and so right, that we're reluctant to stop. But finally, we have toast.

Peeta holds up the chunk of bread between us. "Katniss, I've loved you since I was five years old. The first day I ever laid eyes on you I knew that I loved you, that I would always love you, that from that moment on I would never love anyone else the way I love you. I've dreamed of this day for many years, but you are so much better than any dream. I swear I will always fight for you, I will always protect you, and I will always love you. You've made me the happiest man in Panem by becoming my wife." And he takes a bite.

I take the bread from him and hold it up between us. "Peeta, I don't have your talent with words, I can't possibly express my love as beautifully as you can. All I can say is that I love you, and I always will. Nothing could ever change that. I just want to spend every possible minute of the rest of my life with you. I promise I will always fight for you, I will always protect you, and I will always love you. You make me the happiest woman in Panem every day." And I take a bite.

All I can do is stare at Peeta for a moment, and then we're kissing. I'm lost in the kiss, lost in the moment, lost in my love. I'm lost in Peeta, and I don't care if I'm ever found. When we break apart, all I can do is stare into Peeta's blue eyes, eyes I've grown accustomed to seeing full of love but never more so than in this moment. He stares back at me, and I only hope that he can see my love for him as clearly as I can see his love for me. For just a moment I wish we had decided to have our toasting in private, just the two of us, so we could make love for the first time right here, right now, by our toasting fire, with the taste of the bread still on our lips.

We're broken out of our trance when Haymitch, of all people, begins singing the District Twelve wedding song. Ordinarily the song is sung when a couple crosses into their new home for the first time, but since Peeta and I already lived here before marrying we had skipped that part of the tradition. In contrast to the gruffness and general unsteadiness of Haymitch's speaking voice, his singing voice is remarkably smooth, a deep, rich baritone. He's soon joined by most of our other guests; though I can see Gale scowling at me and obviously not singing I ignore it.

Once the song is finished, Peeta and I kiss again – just a quick peck this time. We stand, and everyone rushes to congratulate us again on our marriage now that the toasting is done. Eventually Peeta and Prim make it to the kitchen, and I try to herd everyone back into the dining room. Peeta brings out the cake and Prim carries a huge stack of dishes and utensils.

Once Peeta unveils the cake, everyone stops to congratulate him again, and he certainly deserves it. The cake is stunningly beautiful, and remarkable considering the short time he had to work on it. It's two tiers, frosted in dark evergreen with pale orange features around the edges. I would never imagine those two colors working together but somehow Peeta made it beautiful. The sides of the cake have iced flower designs, not the intricate frosting petals he creates when he has many days to work with but still amazing. He seems to have made every type of wildflower imaginable, but I pick out some primroses in there, and katniss, and rue, and dandelions. The top of the cake is covered by a large design in icing: A katniss flower and a dandelion, their stems twined around each other, their intermingled roots forming the word _Always_. I tear up at the sight of it; it's perfect, and I tell Peeta so between my tears.

Peeta gently wipes the tears from my cheeks. "It's a cake. It's supposed to make people happy," he says tenderly.

"I am happy," I tell him, my cheeks still wet. "I'm happier than I ever thought I could be." And I pull him down for another kiss.

Everyone agrees that the cake is as delicious as it was beautiful. I'm actually sad to see it cut up, but Peeta assures me that once we get our supplies for our talent he'll paint the katniss-and-dandelion design and we can hang it in the house. I think of the drab walls of our Capitol-built home, soon to be covered in beautiful artwork by Peeta, and I smile.

As soon as people begin finishing their cake, they begin making their exits. Gale has to be up early for the mines in the morning; he takes Rory, Vick, and Posy with him, but Hazelle offers to stay and help clean up. Rye and Barlee have to be up early for the bakery; Mr. Mellark offers to stay and help clean but he has to be up just as early, and Peeta insists he go home. They bring Delly with them, who has to get back home to her parents. Mayor Undersee congratulates us again and thanks us for the invitation, but surprisingly Madge offers to stay and help. Haymitch, whose alcohol intake tonight has been admirably limited, is able to make it home on his own, and between the six of us remaining we have the plates and glasses collected and cleaned and the living room and dining room tidied up in no time. Mom and Prim live two houses away, but Peeta and I both agree that it's too late for Madge and Hazelle to be walking across the district on their own, and insist on walking them home.

It's late by the time we finally get home. I'm tired, but excited. Once we had dropped Madge and Hazelle off and were walking home alone, I couldn't help but think ahead to tonight. Our wedding night.

"You ready to go to bed?" Peeta asks. Apparently he's as eager as I am.

"I actually am," I tell him with a smile. He gives me a strange look, but I dismiss it. This whole thing is going to be strange for both of us, I think.

When we get upstairs, Peeta goes into the bathroom to change. _Change into what?_ I wonder. I mentally shrug, and begin undressing.

After a minute, sitting on the bed naked waiting for Peeta is making me too nervous, so I throw on a silk robe from my Capitol wardrobe.

Finally Peeta emerges from the bathroom. He's wearing sleep pants and a shirt. I try not to betray my own nervousness and ask, "Aren't you a bit overdressed for this?"

Peeta is a bit flustered. He can undoubtedly tell how little I have on under this robe, and I try not to shrink from his gaze. He opens his mouth a few times before a word finally comes out of it. "Ov- Overdressed?"

I force as much confidence into my voice as I can. "I can't claim to be an expert, but I'd say you're going to have to at least lose the pants."

Peeta is beyond flustered now, he's nearly speechless. "Katniss, we don't have to- I mean, just because we're married- Um, I would never-"

I interrupt his fractured thoughts, but somehow I can't force the confidence into my voice anymore when I ask, "Are you saying you don't want to?"

"No, I didn't say that," Peeta says. He walks over and sits next to me on the bed, and I try not to take it personally when he carefully leaves a few inches of space between us. "I don't want you to think this is something we have to do."

"Is this like the name thing earlier?" I ask. "When are you going to accept that I'm perfectly capable of deciding for myself what I want?"

Peeta sighs heavily. "Katniss, if this is what you truly want then believe me, I'm more than interested. But I meant what I said earlier, I don't ever want us to do anything you might regret later. Just because this is what usually happens on a wedding night, doesn't mean we have to do anything. We can just go to sleep, if that's what you want."

I don't let him continue. "Peeta, I want this." I lean over to give him a soft kiss on the lips, but it doesn't stay soft for long. We both inject more and more passion into the kiss. Somehow Peeta has lost his shirt, because my roaming hands find only his hard, toned chest and back. I wonder briefly how that happened when I don't remember breaking our kiss, but at this moment I really don't care.

I gasp when I feel Peeta's hand on my breast, but before I can do anything else Peeta jerks himself away from me. "I- I'm sorry," he stammers out. "I- I-"

"Peeta, stop. You didn't do anything wrong." I shift over to close the distance he's opened between us. I'm trying desperately not to let on to Peeta how nervous I am, but I can't quite keep a stammer out of my own voice as I tell him, "Th-that felt r-really good."

Peeta looks straight into my eyes, pinning me with his blue gaze. "Katniss, are you absolutely sure?"

I nod my head, and lean in and kiss him again. "This is my wedding night, and I want to make love to my husband." I've always been better with actions than words, so I decide to take action.

I stand up and place myself directly in front of him, holding him by the shoulders to make sure he turns to face me. "Trust me," I tell him, then, mustering every bit of courage I have in me, I untie my robe and let it fall to the floor. Peeta just stares at me with his jaw hanging open, his eyes roaming over every inch of my exposed body. I fight my instinct to shrink from his gaze, and the look of awe on his face helps build my confidence back up. "I want this," I repeat. I lean in and kiss him again. My hands roam his torso. It takes a while, but eventually Peeta allows his hands to rest on my bare hips. I can't contain the soft moan that his touch elicits from me.

When we break the kiss, I find I'm now straddling Peeta's lap, kneeling on the bed to either side of him. Peeta's hands haven't moved from my hips. I don't let him try to pull away again, I wrap my arms around him and pull us together, out naked chests pressed together, our foreheads leaned against each other, our faces just barely separated. I can feel Peeta's heartbeat against my breast. I can feel his heavy breathing against my face. I can even feel his arousal pressed against me through the fabric of his sleep pants. This last makes me smile a bit; I feel sort of perversely proud that I've had this effect on him, that I've proven to both of us that he wants this just as much as I do.

"Katniss, you are so indescribably beautiful," he breathes out. "I just- I just- Thank you."

I can't help but be happy with how tongue-tied I've made my husband. "I'm yours, Peeta," I say, and I can feel his breath hitch and his whole body freeze for just a moment as he absorbs my words. "I'm your wife, and you're my husband, and nothing we do together could ever be wrong." I stop to give him another short kiss. "Nothing we do together could ever be anything that I would regret."

"I'm yours," Peeta repeats back to me. "If you want to do this, I am completely yours to do whatever you want with. The only thing I would ever regret is hurting you."

"You won't," I say, "you won't," and then I can't take the separation anymore so I pull him into another fevered kiss.

Peeta lets his hands roam up my sides a bit, but only so far. Growing impatient, and feeling emboldened by my earlier actions, I take his hands in mine, and place them directly onto my breasts. We both moan at the contact. Gently, tentatively, oh so carefully, Peeta squeezes my soft flesh, and we both moan again, and I find myself arching my back into his touch.

I can already feel that I'm starting to lose myself to this new experience, lose myself to sensation. Is this really supposed to feel so good already? I mean, we're not even having sex yet, but this is by far the most intensely pleasurable experience of my life. Love and sex always seemed like such a nuisance to me; an annoyance at best, danger at worst. But this is incredible. Peeta is incredible. And he makes me feel things I've never imagined. He makes me feel incredible. In this moment, I can't understand why I would ever have not wanted this. In this moment, I don't know how on earth I ever lived without this.

Rather belatedly, I realize there's something important I haven't said yet tonight. "Peeta?" I ask, out of breath.

"Yes, Katniss?" he answers, out of breath.

"I love you."

Peeta starts for a moment, then smiles. "I love you, Katniss."

That leaves only one more thing to say. "Now take off your pants."

Peeta needs no further encouragement.

…..

"Wow."

"Yeah."

"That was…"

"Amazing."

"It was perfect."

"You're perfect."

"You're amazing."

"Why thank you."

"I love you."

"I love you, so much."

"We're married. We can spend the rest of our lives loving each other."

"Loving each other in what sense?"

"In every sense."

"You just can't get enough of me, can you?"

"No. Not at all."

"That's good, cause I can't get enough of you either."

"You just can't keep your hands off me."

"No, I really can't. Do you want me to?

"No, not at all."

"Good."

" _Ohhhhhh…_ "

…..

Our first time is a bit clumsy, and a bit tentative, and a bit awkward. I find it a bit uncomfortable at first, though not nearly as bad as some of the horror stories I overheard from other girls at school. After trying so hard to ease Peeta's nerves, mine come back with a vengeance, but together we manage to calm each other. It's thrilling, and frightening, and one of the most amazing experiences of my life. Physical love is much like emotional love in that way. I guess years in the woods and weeks in the arena did a number on my body, because I have no bleeding and no real pain to go with my first time. Just as well, I think, though Peeta is so worried about causing me any pain that I can't help but laugh at his terrified expression. Lesson learned: Don't laugh at your husband in the middle of lovemaking. Making him laugh _with_ you, on the other hand…

Our second time is less clumsy and less tentative and much less awkward, more experimental and exploratory. We've worked through our initial nervousness, have become more comfortable with each other, and now we're really learning what we're doing. We're learning each other's bodies, learning what feels good and what feels amazing. I discover that Peeta's left earlobe seems to be almost the most sensitive spot on his body. Almost. Peeta finds a particular spot where my neck meets my collarbone that makes my whole body melt when he kisses it. I learn that while running my hands through Peeta's hair will make him growl at me in a most unexpectedly pleasing way, if I actually pull on his hair it only serves to remind him of his mother. I also learn that one of the best ways to make him stop thinking of his mother is to hug his naked body to mine as tightly as I can.

By our third time I think we're really getting the hang of it, moving together so perfectly that it feels like we're becoming one being. It's at this point when I start to wonder if spending the rest of my life in bed with Peeta is a viable option. Peeta laughs lightly at the idea, but he doesn't say no.

By our fourth time Peeta talks me into being on top, which is thrilling and frightening and one of the most amazing experiences of my life.

And after, snuggled together sitting against the headboard, when neither one of us has the energy left for anything more heated than soft, sweet kisses, I sing for Peeta. I sing the valley song, for the first time since I was a young child, and the look of adoration Peeta gives me is so adorable it makes him look like a young child again. I sing a few other songs, songs my father taught me that I haven't sung since he died. I even sing a song of love that I remember hearing my father sing for my mother; I sing it now for my husband.

_You're just too good to be true_  
 _Can't take my eyes off of you_  
 _You'd be like heaven to touch_  
 _I want to hold you so much_  
 _At long last love has arrived_  
 _And I'm so glad I'm alive_  
 _You're just too good to be true  
_ _Can't take my eyes off of you_

Later, barely awake, secure in Peeta's arms, physically exhausted and lost in memories and soaked in love, I mull over that thought. Songs I learned from my father and now share with my husband. And so quickly that it happens before the idea can terrify me, I think about one day teaching songs to my children. Would my children sing as beautifully as my father did?

Wait a minute, children? _My_ children? I don't want children. I'm never having children.

_Peeta wants children_ , I think, and it's undoubtedly true. Even if our experience in the Games has put him off the idea for now, given the opportunity I'm sure Peeta would love to be a father. I look up at Peeta, exhausted and nearly asleep as I am, a small, sweet smile on his face. He would make a wonderful father. He would be so kind and gentle with our children, never once losing his patience or his temper. He would set the right example for them, kind and considerate and brave and determined. And he would protect them with every fiber of his being, he'd fight to the death to protect our family just like he fought for me in the Games. Peeta Mellark would be the perfect father.

I shouldn't be thinking about that, because we're not having kids. We're not having kids.

But for just a moment, I picture it. I picture our kitchen: Peeta baking, me eating, and running around the table is a toddling boy with a mop of blond curls on his head. I picture Peeta giving our son a cookie and ruffling his already unruly hair. I picture the boy munching on the cookie and his happy giggles filling the room. I picture how happy he makes Peeta, and shockingly enough, how happy he makes me.

But wait, no. I don't want kids. I've never wanted kids. I don't want kids.

_Yeah, you never wanted to fall in love or get married either, look where that got you._

The idea is ridiculous, anyway. I can't have kids. As a practical matter I won't be fertile for five years. And I could never have kids so long as there are reapings, no matter how cute they'd be and no matter how incredibly good a father Peeta would be.

No, stop it. Stop thinking like that, Katniss. Especially now, with the Capitol and the president after me. Any child of mine may as well be born on a tribute train.

I forcibly expel all thoughts of children from my mind, and instead concentrate on what I have here. The cool night air drifting in through the open window and gradually dissipating the mugginess in the room. The delicious soreness I feel from the evening's activities. The surprisingly pleasurable feel of the bedsheets on my naked body.

And, of course, Peeta. My husband, my Peeta, sweaty and exhausted and hugging me close to him. His heart, gently _thump-thump_ ing in my ear. His chest, rhythmically lifting and lowering, carrying my head with it. His body, pressed against mine, skin to skin. I feel like despite my mother, despite his mother, despite Gale, despite everything, this day couldn't have gone any better. My perfect wedding day.

Just as I'm finally about to drift off, I hear him whisper, "Is this real? This can't be real, can it?"

"It's real, Peeta," I mumble into his chest. "We're real."

I can't muster the energy to move my head or to raise my voice. I'm not even sure if he heard me until he responds, "Are you sure? This seems too good to be real."

"It's real," I repeat. "I love you. There's nothing more real than that."

"Okay, I believe you," he says, each word growing more indistinct as he slowly slips toward unconsciousness. "But I'm gonna be pissed if I wake up tomorrow in my room with Rye complaining about me moaning your name in my sleep again."

Hmm. Peeta used to moan my name in his sleep? There's a tidbit about Peeta's younger years that I was previously unaware of. "Go to sleep, Peeta. It'll still be real when you wake up."

Peeta lets out a muffled grunt in reply. I think he's finally asleep, and truthfully I think I'm finally asleep, until I hear him whisper-mumble one more thing.

"I love you, Katniss."

I smile into his chest. "I love you, Peeta."

And so ends my wedding day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anybody is still reading this story, then I sincerely thank you. It's been literally over a year since I last updated this story. All I can say is that real life has been both time-consuming and enormously demotivating. But nothing has been abandoned, as I hope this fifteen-thousand-word behemoth of a chapter shows.
> 
> I usually aim for about five thousand words per chapter, so ordinarily I would have split this up into two. I didn't for two reasons: 1. This story was taking SO LONG to finally get to the part with a plot, and 2. It has literally been over a calendar year since my last update, I wasn't going to come back with half a chapter. So I decided to just push through to the end of the wedding day in one chapter.
> 
> In the year since my last NAOI update I completed my other WIP, What's So Civil About War Anyway?, and published a Prompts in Panem oneshot I'm really proud of, The Other Choice, so I hope you'll check out my other stories if you haven't already seen those. Coming up this weekend for the Holidays in Panem PiP, I'll be submitting what I'm calling the dumbest Everlark AU ever, so keep an eye out for that one. It'll be cross-posted on this site probably by Monday or Tuesday.
> 
> Next chapter: A bit of an interregnum, the calm before the storm. P&K are happily married, they slowly acclimate to their lives as Victors, they establish what will become their new normal. Chapter after next: All of that gets blown to hell when the plot of Catching Fire finally enters the story.
> 
> Preview quote from Chapter 10:
> 
> _"Well, if it isn't our favorite Victor! Still slumming it with the rest of us?"_


	10. Our Life

The sun is already high in the sky when I wake the next morning. When I lift my head I see that Peeta is still asleep. It's the first night since returning home that I didn't have a single nightmare, and I can only assume it's because we were so tired out by the time we finally dropped off last night.

I can't help but reach up and brush some of Peeta's hair back off his face. His face scrunches up adorably at my touch before relaxing back into sleep. I can't help but think that this is how I want to wake up every day. Then I realize, now I can.

I think back on everything that's happened in the last several days. Was it really only three days ago that all the cameras and attendants went back to the Capitol and we were finally left on our own? The day the cameras left was last Friday, when we had our first family dinner together, Gale walked away from me, and I came to Peeta's house in the middle of the night and spent the night with him. The first day without any Capitol obligations was when I fought with my mother over breakfast and then moved in with Peeta. The second day was when I fought with Gale, got married, made an uneasy peace with Gale, and made love to Peeta. Today was day three; what could possibly happen now?

_Our lives_ , I think with a smile.

…..

We spend that entire day at home. It's too late to get in a good hunting trip, and truthfully I'm feeling a little sore after last night, more than I was at the time. Peeta doesn't even cook anything, because we still have so much food left over from the toasting dinner. There's nothing to clean, since everybody stayed over after cake to help us clean up last night. For the first time in many, many years, neither of us has anything we have to do, and we both go a little stir-crazy. The supplies for our art talent can't get here soon enough.

…..

The following day we're both determined to leave the house. I head out to the woods and make good on my promise to Gale to run the snare lines for him, but I don't do much beyond checking the snares. I find that hunting has lost a lot of its allure for me, especially hunting alone. I have too many memories of using a bow against people to truly find peace in using it against animals.

I make my first appearance at the Hob since returning home, and for the first time I walk in with a pocket full of coins rather than meat to trade. It's a new experience, and more than a few of the vendors give me odd looks. I guess I'm not truly Seam anymore in their eyes. But Greasy Sae greets me warmly, and most of the people I used to trade with regularly take her lead.

Peeta heads to town to help out at the bakery, but when I return home that afternoon he's already there, having been turned away by his mother. Apparently having a Victor working at the bakery, admitting that his contribution to the business was valuable and was still important even now that his survival didn't depend on it, would be an embarrassment to her. She threw in a few more jabs about his new, undeservedly elevated status, and I'm sure about his marriage to me, but I cut off his story with a kiss and a plea to put the miserable woman out of his mind. We wind up with way too much bread around the house as Peeta bakes frustrations away. I want to stay with him while he works, so I claim a spot on the counter next to him as my own, sitting up on the counter like I do at Greasy Sae's rather than lurking somewhere behind him. This way I can see his face, I can reach over and touch him, and I can nip a bit of dough for myself if he's making something particularly good.

Peeta jokes that my perch on the counter leaves my breasts right at his eye level, and smirks at the blush that floods my face. I smirk back when his falls away as I whip my shirt over my head.

I learn that Peeta is easy to distract.

…..

Wednesday evening, we're enjoying a post-coital nap on the living room couch when the television snaps on. The set coming on by itself like that means a mandatory viewing is coming on, but normally mandatory viewings are announced ahead of time. Even turning on the television automatically doesn't do much good if people aren't home to watch it.

Apparently we now know how long it takes official records to be filed, because the impromptu mandatory viewing is President Snow proudly announcing our marriage. Somehow they've taken the bare fact that we got married and turned it into a ten-minute speech, filled with falsehoods and embellishments and plenty of empty platitudes about how excited everyone is for us and how much Panem loves us. Neither Peeta nor I can form any coherent response once the broadcast ends, we're still alternating stares at the now dormant television and each other when Haymitch comes barging in and sits himself down on the other couch. He just smirks and takes a swig from his flask while Peeta and I scramble to cover ourselves and explain in colorful terms how to knock on doors and why he might want to try it sometime. Haymitch ignores our concerns and proceeds to discuss the broadcast and all the various ways the Capitol is pissed at us inbetween pulls from his flask. He winds up getting drunk before getting to the point, and totters off in the general direction of his house without having told us anything useful.

We try to remember to lock the doors before getting naked after that. Peeta, ever the optimist, points out that it's better to have learned that particular lesson from Haymitch than from Prim. As usual, he's right.

…..

On Thursday I spy a good sized doe in the woods, but just as I'm about to release my arrow it turns and looks me straight in the eye. I spend the next hour sobbing uncontrollably over Rue and bring Hazelle nothing but a fistful of coins that day. She doesn't say anything, she can see my face, she just takes the coins and lets me go home to Peeta's comforting embrace.

…..

On Friday, Peeta makes his first batch of pastry buns with goat cheese, which he so very creatively calls cheese buns. They may in fact be one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten, with the bubbly melted cheese toasting over and turning a little nutty, and the perfect golden crust of the slightly sweet bun. After my first bite, I quickly shove the rest of the bun into my mouth and grab a second; if Prim hadn't come over for the occasion and been right here waiting for them to come out of the oven then she wouldn't have gotten the chance to try one. I don't even care when Peeta teases me for inhaling them so quickly, or points out that I thought the recipe was a bad idea when he came up with it. In order to respond to him I'd have to stop eating, so I don't. I try to be mad at Peeta later for making fun of me, but then he kisses that spot where my neck meets my collarbone and I lose the capacity for rational thought.

…..

On Saturday, I decide that since I'm not hunting game anyway, there's no reason not to bring Peeta with me to the woods. So much of my self is tied to the woods, and I want to share that part of my life with him. So I wait for him to finish baking in the morning and go to the woods later than I would for a hunting trip. I carry my bow and arrows, Peeta carries a picnic lunch. Peeta is louder than ever with his new leg, but I don't care today.

I can see from his face that this reminds him of the woods in the arena; it makes sense, since those are the only woods he's ever spent significant time in. I reach out and twine our free hands together. Peeta tries to flash me a smile but doesn't quite manage it, his face still tense.

"Are you okay?" I ask him.

"Fine," he says tersely.

We walk on for another minute.

"You know you're safe out here with me, right? I've been coming out here all my life, I won't let anything happen to you," I tell him.

"I know that," he says, and musters a small but genuine smile. "Just like you know that I'm in bed with you and not bleeding to death on the Cornucopia."

"Do you want to leave?" I ask. Damn my selfishness, dragging him out here with me just because it's something _I_ love, not giving any thought to the possibility that he may react differently. Have I tried to push him too far? "I can check the snares on my own."

"No, I'm fine," Peeta says, even though we both know he isn't. "Look, it's just going to be like this for us sometimes. Part of us is always going to be in the Games. Maybe over time that'll be a smaller and smaller part, but it'll never completely go away. I don't look at the woods and see the beauty, I see the place the Careers almost killed you."

"I think we can fix that," I say, deciding the snares can wait and pulling Peeta in the other direction. "Are you up for a hike?"

"Sure," he says, uncertain but willing to follow wherever I lead.

"Are you sure you don't want to go home?"

"No. I want to be out here with you." It's the most conviction he's managed to put into anything he's said today, and I can't help but smile up at him.

We don't talk much on the walk, but it's a comfortable, companionable silence. Peeta seems to relax bit by bit as time goes on. I watch for any predators attracted by Peeta's heavy steps, but nothing approaches us. I don't bother to shoot the few rabbits I see.

It's a long walk to my father's lake, and we have to go more slowly than I'm used to at times because this is the first time Peeta's used his prosthetic on uneven terrain like this. But it's all worth it when I see the look of awe on his face when he takes in the view for the first time. The morning mist has burned off by now, but there's a flock of waterfowl near the far shore, and tall grasses surrounding the waterline. It occurs to me that, after living his whole life inside the fence, this may be the first natural body of water he's ever seen. Well, there was the lake in the arena, but arenas are anything but natural.

We sit in the dirt looking out over the water, and I tell him all about my childhood, about hunting trips with my father, about long summer days spent swimming in the lake. I learned to swim before I even learned to shoot, so long ago that I don't even remember learning. I just remember diving, turning somersaults, and paddling around. The muddy bottom of the lake beneath my toes. Floating on my back, staring at the blue sky while the chatter of the woods was muted by the water.

I show him several of the plants that grow around the lake, including my namesake katniss plants. Before we leave I even shoot a few ducks, the first animals I've killed since returning home. I still wouldn't call it hunting, the birds out here are so unused to human predators that they're easy pickings.

We don't get to spend much time at the lake due to our late start, and because I still need to run the snare line. I promise Peeta we'll leave earlier the next time we come out here, early enough that I can teach him to swim. Peeta's face brightens at the mention of a next time and then dims considerably at the prospect of trying to swim, but I kiss him and promise not to let him drown.

I bring Peeta back to the fence and let him take a couple of ducks and a sack of katniss tubers home while I run the snare lines, then bring the meat to Hazelle along with a the rest of the ducks I had bagged. By the time I return home Peeta has already cleaned the birds and has one started in the oven. He says he gave the other to my mother and Prim, and after spending the day at my father's lake the small gesture nearly knocks the wind out of me. I know Peeta will take care of my family just like I do, but every time he does something to remind me of that fact is blows me away. It's been so long since I had anyone other than myself I could rely on to take care of Prim.

That night, Peeta and I make a meal of roast duck and katniss, the same meal my family would enjoy before my father died, while he tells me about his very first baking lesson.

…..

On Sunday, I head out at dawn and meet Gale in the woods for the first time since returning home. Hunting with Gale feels very different now. For one, I'm not hunting much, which Gale doesn't understand. I manage to take down a rabbit and a few squirrels. But then one time in mid-morning Gale spooks a flock of birds for me, and I let them all fly away as I become distracted by memories of the mockingjays in the arena. He stops trying to coax me into shooting after that. I leave the game to him.

I can see the effect working in the mines has had on Gale. He's tired, slump-shouldered, and I wonder how hard it was for him to be out here at dawn. Several times I catch him with his eyes closed, standing with his face turned up towards the sky, doing nothing but feeling the sun on his skin. He never did that when he was out here every day, before he spent six days a week underground. He seems embarrassed every time he does it, so I don't say anything about it. We've become very good at not talking about anything important, Gale and I.

We spend hours out in the woods, Gale hunting and both of us running the snare lines, but we never discus anything of consequence. My marriage, my husband, Gale's new job, the extra coins I've begun slipping into my deliveries to his mother, none of them make appearances in our conversation. I'm left feeling vaguely unsettled when we part at the end of the day, but I suppose the day went about as well as I could hope for, given everything between us now.

…..

Peeta and I both have some difficulty adjusting to the life of a Victor, but eventually we fall into a comfortable routine. Routines become important to us. Peeta's been working in the bakery his whole life, and I've spent nearly all my free time since I was eleven trying to feed myself. It's quite an adjustment to suddenly have no obligations.

We quickly learn that whoever gets up first should wake the other; the extra few minutes of sleep aren't worth the panic of waking up and finding the other missing. Maybe with time our first thoughts will shift to "She's showering," or "He's baking," instead of "They were eaten by mutts," but we're not there yet. Luckily, both of us are used to getting up long before the sun – my hunting and Peeta's baking both had to be done before school opened for the day.

We fall into certain patterns with each other as well, though neither of us discusses them. Neither one of us ever says, "I love you, _too_ ," as if our love is merely an addendum of the other's. I never want Peeta to think that I only love him because he loves me. And neither one of us ever uses a nickname for the other. We're both too wary of even subtle dehumanization, both still scarred by being reduced to television characters for public consumption. The Girl on Fire and the Boy in Love. The only exception we occasionally use are the titles we chose for ourselves, husband and wife.

I go out and check Gale's snare lines at least ever other day. My original intention had been to go every day, but some days I just want to stay home with Peeta all day, and now that I have that luxury it doesn't take much to convince myself to indulge in it. Sometimes, Peeta stays home and bakes, but often he comes with me on my trips into the woods. Since I'm mostly just checking the snares and tracking game isn't a necessity anymore, his loud gait isn't a problem. I try to teach him to shoot one day, but he's hopeless. He never looks comfortable holding the bow, and nearly shoots himself when his fingers slip at the wrong moment. Surprisingly, though, he takes readily to the snares when I show him how to set a few. Soon I begin teaching him every snare we have, and he learns them far more quickly than I did when Gale taught me. All those years decorating cakes have trained his hands for precision work.

He even starts accompanying me to the Hob. Though nobody ever speaks to us of it, I found out from Gale that during the Games, Greasy Sae started a collection to sponsor us in the arena. It started out as just a Hob thing, but a lot of other people heard about it and chipped in as well. I don't know exactly how much it was, and the price of any gift in the arena was exorbitant. But for all I know, it made the difference between both of us living and both of us dying. So we always spread our purchases as widely as possible among the vendors, handing shiny new coins over to as many people as we can.

Peeta is baking more than we can eat, and decides to try to sell the surplus to at the Hob. They won't take the bread for free like he was hoping, but he's able to sell it for far less than it would normally cost. I worry that he may be hurting his family's livelihood by undercutting their prices, but he just shrugs and explains that his mother would never allow them to sell to the Hob anyway.

I never trade meat at the Hob anymore, every bit of game I collect that I don't keep goes to Hazelle. Whatever supplies she needs that I would normally trade some of the game for I now purchase with either my Victor's money or Peeta's bread. Most days I slip her some coins as well. It's far more than Gale and I ever collected, and she must know this, but we seem to have an unspoken arrangement where Hazelle will accept my help as long as neither of us mentions that it's help, and Gale doesn't say anything about it so long as I always come while he's away at work.

…..

It's a little over two weeks after the wedding when our art supplies arrive, crates and crates full of the stuff delivered to our house in the Victor's Village. Reams of heavy paper, leather-bound sketchbooks, and dark charcoal pencils. Stacks of canvases and more kinds of paints and brushes than I knew existed. I view the supplies with trepidation. I agreed to this talent on impulse, desperate at the time for any prospect of spending time together with Peeta. That is less of an urgent need now that we're married, live together, sleep together, and now that I can think clearly about it I know I won't be any good at this.

Peeta, on the other hand, looks like a child with a new toy. How long has he dreamed of taking his artistic skill beyond frosting? That camouflage he did in the Training Center, he didn't learn that in three days. In his head he's already seeing the artworks he'll create with these supplies. Which will undoubtedly be incredible, and make mine look even worse by comparison.

My mood is growing steadily fouler at the prospect of my impending failure when I feel two strong arms snake around me from behind as a chin rests on my shoulder. "If you promise to smile, I'll make you cheesebuns," Peeta says into my ear.

"You'll probably make me cheesebuns anyway."

"Well, that's true," he admits. "How about if I make you hot chocolate?"

I spin around to face him. "Where did you get hot chocolate?"

"Where do you think?" he says with a laugh. "I ordered it from the Capitol, it came in on the same shipment with our art stuff."

"And you've been hiding it from me for all this time?" I ask in indignation. The delivery people arrived ten minutes ago.

"Does that mean you'll stop scowling at the workers and come have lunch with me?" he asks with a cheeky smile.

I grudgingly agree.

…..

The first time Peeta meets Greasy Sae is a day towards the end of September when we decide to grab some lunch while we're at the Hob. I should have expected she would try to shock the delicate sensibilities of an all-to-rare merchant customer.

I boost myself up to sit on the counter, and Peeta takes the seat next to me. When Sae brings us our soup, Peeta politely thanks her for his bowl and digs in, but I know better than to do that with Sae's sometimes-questionable concoctions.

"What's in the pot today?" I ask as I stir my bowl a bit.

She waits until Peeta has another spoonful in his mouth before answering. "That's the dog you and your cousin brought in here last Sunday."

Peeta starts and swallows hard, and turns his wide eyes towards me, but rather than say anything about his lunch all he says is, "You shot a dog?"

I try to shrug it off. "We wound up treed by a pack. We shot a few of them before the rest of the pack left."

He still looks concerned. "You didn't say anything about being treed."

"Peeta, I'm fine. It happens sometimes. You just run up a tree and wait them out. I've been hunting on my own since I was eleven. Now I'm older, more experienced, and I have Gale with me. I'm fine."

He puts his bowl down on the counter and stands, stepping closer to me and taking my bowl from me before depositing it next to his and taking both my hands in his. "Were you okay?" he says quietly, and I know what he's really asking. He knows I still don't hunt as much as I used to.

"There was a moment, when I looked down and I thought I saw Glimmer and Cato. For just a split second I thought Gale had shot Glimmer, but then I blinked and they were dogs again. I'm telling you, it was fine."

Peeta nods, but I can tell he doesn't quite believe me. "I'm just worried about you."

"I know. But I'm safe. I swear."

"I'm still going to worry. I always worry when you're not with me," he says.

"I know," I say. We both do.

He sits back down after that, and resumes eating his soup. Sae gives me a funny look after witnessing the exchange, but her primary interest remains on Peeta's reaction to the main ingredient in his lunch.

"So what do you think?" she prods him.

He looks up at her and gives her a winning smile. "This is definitely the best four-day-old-dog soup I've ever had."

I know Sae can give as good as she gets, but she doesn't know Peeta at all, and for just a moment I think he's offended her. But then she flashes that mischievous grin of hers at me. "You better keep an eye on your boy here, he's a real charmer."

I roll my eyes at her. "Tell me about it."

"I guess you'd know," Sae says. "Seeing as how he's already cracked the toughest nut in the district." She and Peeta share a conspiratorial smirk as I feel my face redden, before Sae moves on to help a new customer.

"I didn't bring you here so the two of you could gang up on me," I say, half-seriously. "You know she was hoping for more of a reaction from you to the dog soup?"

"I know," he says. "We used to pay you for squirrels. You think I'm going to turn my nose up at some wild dog?" He pauses and has another bite. "Besides, I wasn't kidding. This is good."

"It's the spices," I say. "I think Sae and the spice vendor Digger have a special arrangement."

Peeta opens his mouth to respond, but before he can we're interrupted by the approach of a Peacekeeper. Peeta immediately tenses, as if he's getting ready to fight or run, but I give him a look to tell him to relax. Any Peacekeeper in the Hob isn't here to cause trouble, and I recognize the man approaching us as Darius, one of the best of the lot. He doesn't try to intimidate or blackmail any of the vendors, and is usually good for a laugh or two. If an unrepentant criminal could have a favorite law enforcer, he'd probably be mine.

This is the first time I've encountered Darius since the Games, and his booming, cheerful voice hasn't changed. "Well, if it isn't our favorite Victor! Still slumming it with the rest of us?"

I roll my eyes at Darius's antics. "It'd take more than the Hunger Games to make me give up Greasy Sae's soup," I say.

"Isn't that the truth!" Darius agrees. He starts playing with the end of my braid like he always does, but now I see Peeta watching him carefully as he does so. "You're a Victor now. Shouldn't you look better?" Darius asks. "Maybe a ribbon in your hair or something? Show some district pride, Miss Everdeen!"

I make no move to stop Darius's actions, but I say, "You might want to stop fiddling with my hair, Darius. I'm not some random girl you can mess with anymore. I'm a Hunger Games victor, and so is my overprotective husband."

Peeta stands and offers Darius his hand. "Peeta Mellark. Pleased to meet you, Officer Darius."

"Oh that's right, you're not even Miss Everdeen anymore, are you?" he says as he drops my braid to shake Peeta's hand. "Assuming the broadcast from the Capitol can be believed."

That's a dangerous sentiment, coming from a Peacekeeper. I look at Peeta, he has nothing but questions in his eyes. He knows I know Darius, he's letting me decide how much to trust him.

"That one can," I say carefully as Greasy Sae hands him his soup.

From the look on his face, I can tell that Darius understands exactly what I'm saying. "There was some discussion in the barracks, some debate over just how… real this whole thing was. Some people think it was nothing but a strategy for the Games."

"Seems like a lot of people like to debate each other about us," Peeta chimes in.

"Care to settle the discussion?" Darius asks. Anyone who didn't know him would think he sounded playful, but I can hear the seriousness beneath his words.

"Would you believe us?" I ask.

"I would believe you, Miss Everdeen," he answers.

"It's Mellark," I say without thinking.

"So it is," Darius says, and his expression is unreadable now. He takes a seat next to Peeta and digs into his soup. Peeta sits back down himself, but doesn't resume eating. I'm still not completely sure I haven't just imagined the deeper meaning of this conversation. Darius is a Peacekeeper, after all. But that also means he might know something about the situation in the Capitol. He could potentially be a valuable source of information.

"I get the impression you don't entirely believe us," Peeta says.

"Katniss Everdeen, happily married? That does seem like a bit of a stretch," Darius says.

"What do you want us to do, make out on Greasy Sae's counter?" I ask testily.

"That would attract some business, wouldn't it?" Peeta asks with a grin. "I mean, we haven't made out on television for what, almost a month? People must miss us."

I scoff. "That would be funnier if it weren't true."

"I don't care how famous you are now," Sae chimes in, rejoining the discussion after serving other customers. "No making out at my counter. People have to eat here."

"But you let her sit on the counter!" Darius protests.

Sae doesn't miss a beat. "Katniss is a very clean girl."

I give Peeta a glare to try to stop him from responding. It sort of works; he doesn't make any crack about my cleanliness. "So does that mean I'm the problem?" he asks Sae. "If I were cleaner, then could we make out on the counter?"

"No!" she says emphatically, earning laughs from all three of us. "You two have giant Victor's houses. You can find someplace to make out that's not my counter."

"It's alright, Sae, we'll try to contain ourselves," I tell her.

"But only because I don't want to miss out on the best soup in the district," Peeta says.

"Told you he was a charmer," Sae tells me before heading to the other end of the counter to handle more customers.

Darius comments, "Well, you've got the banter down flat, at least."

"Look," I say to him, "I've already had to have long discussions about this, trying to justify my marriage to my mother and Gale. I'm not doing that for anyone else. You can either take my word, or not."

"And your mother and Gale, did you convince them?" Darius asks.

I'm reluctant to answer, but Peeta takes me by surprise when he answers for me. "Not really," he says.

"My mother is convinced, she just wasn't happy about it at first," I say. "And you know how stubborn Gale is."

"So you two are for real, then?" Darius asks.

"Yes," I answer simply.

"Everything we saw on-screen was real?" he asks.

I sidestep his question. "Everything we do off-screen is real," I tell him.

Darius takes the next several bites to consider what we've told him. "I heard you two were living together," he says casually.

I'm already getting sick of this discussion. I answer tersely. "Married couples tend to do that."

He accepts this answer mutely as he eats more of his soup. After a few minutes of silence he speaks up. "You've been mentioned in quite a few bulletins lately. You can understand my curiosity."

This immediately grabs my attention. We've been discussed in Peacekeeper bulletins? Peeta says, "We can certainly understand not wanting to be left uninformed."

"Is that unusual?" I ask. "To have notices about the new Victors?"

"Well, I've never had Victors in my district before, but I've never seen this many bulletins about any previous victors," Darius says. He says all of this without looking up from his bowl, as casually as if he were discussing the weather.

Now Peeta asks a question that had never occurred to me. "When you said you, did you mean us, or did you mean her?"

Darius pauses for a moment before answering. "Bit of both. But mostly her."

That really throws me. This isn't just about the new Victor, because we're both Victors. For some reason the Peacekeepers are being issued notices about me, specifically me. I want to know why, what those bulletins say. The question is on the tip of my tongue, but somehow I know that asking it would be pushing this information exchange too far. Darius may frequent the Hob, he may laugh and joke with the lawbreakers who populate it, he may like me personally, but he's still a Peacekeeper. Ultimately his loyalty is to the Capitol, not to me, not even to Twelve.

"Is there anything we should do?" Peeta asks.

Darius finishes his soup, and stands to leave. "I wouldn't worry about," he says. "Twelve is quiet, after all. You're here, and nothing's happening here." My mind races to parse what he's really saying. _Nothing's happening here_ , meaning something is happening elsewhere? _You're here_ , meaning we can't be connected to whatever is happening, wherever it is happening. Somehow I doubt President Snow will be that generous.

"Nice to met you, Mr. Mellark," Darius says, clapping Peeta on the shoulder. "Congratulations on accomplishing the impossible. _And_ on winning the Hunger Games." He chuckles to himself as he leaves. Neither Peeta or I are in a laughing mood.

In the end there's nothing we can do, because as Darius said, whatever's happening isn't happening here. All we can do is go on living our new lives and hope for the best.

…..

It takes about a month for Peeta's mother to decide that the market for cakes made by a Victor is large enough to override the embarrassment of making a Victor work, and Peeta begins going to the bakery occasionally. I hate that woman and I hate that he'll be subjected to her again, if I had my way he would do all of his work at our house and just deliver the finished product. But I know he misses the bakery, misses working with his brothers and his father. I make him promise me that he'll walk out if she ever touches him again.

I don't know what he ends up saying to her, but she seems to be on her best behavior. Aside the occasional minor burn from the ovens, Peeta never comes home with new marks or bruises. We even end up going into town to have dinner with his family about once every other month. During these meals Mrs. Mellark is unpleasant, but marginally civil. I'm not entirely sure why she even hosts these dinners, considering she hates me and doesn't seem to like Peeta all that much better, but with how little Peeta sees his family now I'm not about to ask him to pass on the opportunity.

…..

Our art talent goes about as well as I expect it to.

Peeta's work starts out looking like a slightly distorted version of his cake designs, as he adapts to the new medium. But over time he begins producing the kind of paintings I knew he would, beautiful and finely detailed and intimidating as hell for me.

My own work starts out as little more than stick figures and somehow gets worse form there. Children drawing with a stick in the dirt could make something clearer than my paintings. Sometimes I get frustrated by the whole thing and just pour a whole pot of paint over the whole canvas and let it dry that way.

Peeta tries to placate me. He actually reads the art books that came with our supplies, and he claims that there's a whole style of painting based on eliciting emotions from the viewer without making a realistic-looking picture. Easy for him to say.

Peeta begins with some test paintings recommended by the books. He paints a bowl of fruit. He paints the view out the window of the spare bedroom we've turned into a studio. He paints one of his shirts hanging over the back of a chair. When he feels confident enough in his abilities, he paints the katniss-and-dandelion design from our wedding cake. We hang that one in our bedroom, where it's eventually joined by his painting of Lady licking Prim in the face while she tries to feed her.

It bothers me when Peeta begins painting his memories of the Games. He begins with little things, things you wouldn't even recognize if you hadn't been with him in the arena yourself. Water dripping through the cracks in our cave. The dry pond bed. A pair of hands, his own, digging for roots. Others any viewer would recognize. The golden horn of the Cornucopia. A shiny tracker-jacker.

Then the other tributes begin showing up. Clove arranging the knives inside her jacket. Marvel posing arrogantly with a spear. One of the mutts, unmistakably the blond, green-eyed one meant to be Glimmer, snarling as it makes its way toward us. And me. I am everywhere. High up in a tree. Beating a shirt against the stones in the stream. Lying unconscious in a pool of blood. And one I can't place - emerging from a silver gray mist that matches my eyes exactly - until he explains that this is how I looked when his fever was high.

I don't understand it at first. All I've done since we got home was try to forget about the arena, and he practically brings it back to life. But he explains that it helps him deal with the nightmares. To get the images out of his head. He even suggests I try it, but the one time I do things don't go well.

I stand immobile, my brush poised just inches from the canvas, as I try to will myself to begin painting something. I don't know how long I remain like this until I realize that my arm is shaking from the strain of gripping the brush as hard as I am. I end up hurling the brush across the room, and pouring an entire pot of black paint over the blank canvas. "There. That's what I want to remember from the arena." Then I knock the painting to the floor and flee the house faster than Peeta can follow, making it all the way to the woods before I break down and cry. I don't return home until long after dark.

…..

Prim calls my paintings "interesting." Peeta calls them "evocative." Haymitch calls them "Exactly what I would have expected from you, Sweetheart." When we send samples to Effie in preparation for the Victory Tour, she calls them "sort of Expressionistic," whatever that means.

I call them "The best they're gonna get." They should have just let me do target shooting.

…..

It's the little things about Peeta that I begin to notice. Like how he ordered hot chocolate from the Capitol just because I liked it. How he always has a loaf of bread and a bag of cookies ready to go whenever I go over to my mother's house to see Prim. How he begins making cheese buns every day once he sees they're my favorite, to the point where I have to ask him to make other things. The way all my pants wind up with flour on them because he can't keep his hands to himself when I'm sitting up on the counter watching him bake. The way he sometimes bakes shirtless, because he knows I can't keep my hands to myself either.

I like to watch his hands as he works, deftly manipulating ingredients and clumps of dough, or making a blank canvas bloom with life. The blond waves of his hair constantly fall over his forehead, just begging me to reach out and brush them back out of his eyes. When he concentrates on his work his usual easy expression is replaced by something more intense and removed that suggests an entire world locked away inside him. I don't know quite what to make of it right now, but I can't help but look forward to unlocking it as we get to know each other better.

I also become a little fixated on his eyelashes, which ordinarily you don't notice much because they're so blond. But in the light slanting in from the back window, they stand out as a light golden color, and they're so long that I don't see how they keep from getting all tangled up when he blinks. Then he does blink, and looks up at me so suddenly that I feel as though I've been caught spying on him. In a strange way maybe I was, but I think I have that right now. So I just stare back, and he breaks out in a breathtaking smile. I still don't know quite shat he sees in me, but whatever it is I couldn't be happier that he sees it.

…..

My hunting improves over time. As I refamiliarize myself with my own woods, my mind's tendency to superimpose visions of the arena diminishes. By late fall I'm back to something resembling my usual routine, just in time for winter weather to arrive in force and make game frustratingly scarce.

Things with Gale seem to improve hand-in-hand with my hunting. He relaxes more and more into our old partnership as I return to my old tendencies. The few times I see something from the Games and panic in his presence, he gets uncomfortable and frustrated, because it's a reminder that there's only one person who can really help me at a moment like that, and it isn't him.

We still don't talk about my new home life. He doesn't want to hear about how easy I have it now. He doesn't want to hear me complain about my troubles with painting, or the difficulties we have using up all of Peeta's baked goods before they go stale, not when he spends twelve hours a day underground trying to support his family and receives a pittance for it compared to my Victor's winnings.

The few times I mention my husband, Gale reacts by scowling even harder than usual and stomping around so loudly he scares all the game away. The second or third time this happens I compare his stomping to Peeta's heavy gait, and that's enough to basically ruin the rest of our day.

The worst day is when Gale finds out that I've been teaching Peeta the snares. He throws a fit, and when the ensuing argument makes reference to Peeta's and my sex life, he has a complete meltdown. He continues ranting at home, which drags Rory into things and almost ruins his friendship with Prim when he repeats what he'd heard. I almost stop hunting with Gale altogether, but Peeta convinces me to give him another chance. He really is too nice for his own good sometimes.

Although Gale and I continue hunting together on Sundays, our friendship is more strained than ever. I can only hope things will improve with enough time, but I finally admit to myself what I probably should have known since I got home: We'll never be as close as we were before I went into the Games. There's no going back.

…..

As her 13th birthday approaches, Prim begins to shoot up like a weed. I don't remember growing this much when I was thirteen. Of course we didn't have food when I was thirteen, whereas Prim lives in the Victor's Village two doors down from a man who's constantly producing too many baked goods. By the time her birthday arrives, she's only a few inches shorter than me. It's clear she'll be tall and beautiful like our mother.

The cake Peeta makes for her birthday is larger and more elaborate than the one he made for our wedding, because he has more time to work on it. It's three tiers, covered in hundreds of yellow confectionary primrose blossoms, so many that Peeta had to start making them days before he even baked the cakes. Prim, of course, loves it. She even tries to feed some to Buttercup, who winds up with frosting smeared in his fur.

None of us has ever had a cake on our birthday before, even before my father died we could never afford something so extravagant. Now we can have them every day if we want. Sometimes thinking about how much my life has changed makes my head spin. But the joy on Prim's face, the gentle smile of my mother, the warmth of the man pressed against me holding my hand under the table, these are all things I can no longer imagine my life without, no matter how recently I became accustomed to them.

…..

And this is our life. I hunt. Peeta bakes. Haymitch drinks. Peeta paints. I try to paint. I spend every afternoon after school with Prim. She wants for nothing.

Peeta and I spend every day together. We go out to the woods together. He watches with an amused smile as I struggle to create something legible on a canvas. I sit up on the counter and watch the muscles in his arms and shoulders as he works the dough. We always remember to lock the door now.

We finally begin to get a full night's sleep, first only occasionally but then more and more often. But there are plenty of bad nights, too. I still see everyone I love die brutal, bloody deaths. I still see Rue calling desperately for me to save her. I still see Clove, and Cato, and an ever-changing variety of mutts. But Peeta's arms are there to comfort me. And his lips. And…

Prim is well taken care of. Peeta is with me, always. And despite everything, despite the nightmares, despite the memories of the Games, despite losing some of the close partnership I used to have with Gale, this new life I find myself in is pretty great.

And this is our life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really like this chapter, because (spoiler!) (though only for people who've never read Catching Fire or Mockingjay) this is basically the peak of happy!Everlark in this story. They're in love, they're together, and they have five months where the world leaves them alone and they get to just be. It's a rough ride from here, though (hopefully) a bit less rough than canon.
> 
> I'd like to take a moment here to address one point that was recently raised by an anonymous reviewer over on FFn (since I can't respond to them directly, and maybe there is more than one person operating under this misconception). Panem is an oppressive, dictatorial, police state. One where the districts are essentially operated as forced labor camps. With that in mind, when I write in this story about Panem inflicting a particular kind of oppression on district residents, that does not mean that I endorse the infliction of that kind of oppression in real life. Believe it or not, I do not support real-life child murdering games, or enforced starvation, or public floggings, or any of the other horrible things Panem does to the district residents. I know this seems obvious, but like I said, there was at least one person confused on this point, so I wanted to make double plus sure that we were all clear on this..
> 
> Next chapter: It's the start of Catching Fire, which means someone will be saying this:
> 
> Preview quote from Chapter 11:
> 
> _"I think we'd make this whole situation a lot simpler if we all agreed not to lie to each other."_


	11. Disaster

Our happy life shatters the day we're set to leave for the victory tour. Peeta and I have both been feeling a bit tense at the idea of the tour, of seeing the families of all the tributes we killed. I don't know how I can possibly face Rue's family.

So on the morning of the day we're set to leave, I decide to go on an early morning hunt to try to clear my head. Our prep teams are set to arrive at noon to make sure we're properly waxed and polished for the walk from our house to the train station, so I set out early and cross the fence at dawn. I only hunt for a few hours, but as always it feels good to be out here. Short of being held by Peeta, this is the only place where I can truly feel at peace.

As usual I bring my game to Hazelle. I decide to keep a squirrel for myself, thinking it's still early enough that Peeta and I can have an early lunch together before the prep teams arrive. As I leave Hazelle's the snowfall that had been threatening all morning finally begins, quickly covering every flat surface with a thin layer of white. By the time I reach the Victor's Village my boots are leaving squishy footprints in the wintery mix covering the ground; footing is going to be treacherous by the time we have to walk to the train later. Peeta is still getting the hang of using his prosthetic on slippery ground. One day last week when we were walking through town he happened to hit a patch of ice under the snow and his leg slipped out from under him; he wound up swinging around almost comically and falling flat on his back, pulling me down to land on top of him. I was afraid he might be seriously hurt, but he just laughed and kissed me as we lay there in the snow.

The memory puts a huge smile on my face as I return home, looking forward to one last meal alone with him before the Tour, but I don't make it two steps into the house before Peeta's there wrapping me up in a bear hug. "Mmmm, I missed you," he says a bit louder than necessary, while slipping my game bag off my shoulder and dropping it out of sight behind a box of paintings that wasn't there when I left this morning. "Did you have a nice walk?"

"Walk?" I ask. Peeta knows where I went this morning. It's only then that I register footsteps coming toward us from the kitchen. Not the footsteps of anyone I know. "It was more like skating. It's really getting slippery out there."

"Well, I'm glad you got home safely," he says. Then more quietly, "There's someone here to see us."

He steps back from me quickly, but doesn't let go of my hand, just before a man enters from the next room. One look at his tailored suit and surgically perfected features and I know he's from the Capitol. Something is wrong.

"Are the prep teams early?" I say as casually as I can manage. "I thought they weren't coming until noon."

"Please follow me, both of you," says the Capitol man. He steps past us to open the front door and gestures for us to go outside. He follows us out, and proceeds to lead us down to my mother's house. He knocks once on the door, and it is immediately answered by another Capitol man. I can see my mother standing off to one side, looking pale and frightened. I don't see Prim anywhere. I try to tell myself that means she's safely elsewhere and not in some terrible danger, but my mother's expression concerns me greatly. I squeeze Peeta's hand and he squeezes back. Whatever happens, we're in this together.

We are led inside and down the hallway, towards the study. The door to the study is closed; my mother never keeps that door closed. The Capitol man stops and opens the door for us, and gestures for us to enter. As soon as the door opens I'm assaulted by two overpowering scents: roses and blood. I look over to Peeta and I can tell by the wriggle of his nose that he smells it too. "Go right in," says the Capitol man.

We enter to find a small, white-haired man sitting behind my mother's desk reading a book. He looks familiar, but somehow out of place. Peeta must recognize him as he freezes next to me. The man holds up a finger as if to say, "Give me a moment." Then he turns and I'm staring into the snakelike eyes of President Coriolanus Snow.

My mind is searching for a rational explanation. Maybe this is a normal part of the Victory Tour? If it is, they've never publicized it before. But I know President Snow only attends celebrations in the Capitol. No, he traveled all the way from the Capitol to my house – _no,_ I think, _to my mother's house_ – just to intimidate me. The absolute ruler of Panem came here to intimidate me. And while that thought fills me with incalculable fear, I also feel a bit of confidence. Maybe I'm more important than I realize.

"President Snow," Peeta says, breaking the silence.

"Mr. Mellark, Miss Everdeen," Snow says in reply.

I think my tongue has frozen and speech will be impossible, but President Snow has done me a favor by using my old name. My response is pure reflex by now and makes me sound much more calm and confident than I really am. "It's Mrs. Mellark, actually."

"So it is," he says. "You two rushed off to the Justice Building before we could organize a Capitol wedding for you."

I can hear the threat in his words. _You robbed me of another chance to exploit your lives for my gain_ he's telling us. I don't bother correcting him about the wedding; if he doesn't already know the details, then there's no need to endanger the Undersees by informing him.

"We didn't want to wait any longer," Peeta says evenly.

The president regards us for several moments. "I think we'd make this whole situation a lot simpler if we all agreed not to lie to each other," he says. "What do you think?"

Peeta doesn't respond. I can see his jaw twitch, whether out of anger or because he's biting back inappropriate replies I don't know. I say, "Yes, I think that would save time."

President Snow smiles, accentuating his overly-puffy lips. Are there people in the Capitol who think that looks good? "My advisors were concerned you two would be difficult, but you're not planning on being difficult, are you?" he asks.

"No," I confirm.

"No," Peeta forces out.

That smile again. "That's what I told them. I said that two people who have gone to such lengths to preserve their lives aren't going to be interested in throwing them away with both hands. And then there's family to think of. Parents. Siblings. And all those… cousins." By the way he lingers on the word "cousins," President Snow clearly knows the truth about the Hawthornes. Well, he said we wouldn't lie to each other.

"Please, sit," he says, gesturing towards two chairs on the other side of the desk. It irks me a bit that he's acting host in my mother's home, in my Victory House, but I know better than to say anything. This is a place that he has no right to occupy, but ultimately every right.

"I have a problem. A problem that began the moment you pulled out those poisonous berries in the arena," the president says, turning to me. I don't say anything, so he continues. "If the Head Gamemaker, Seneca Crane, had had any brains, he'd have blown you to dust right then. But he had an unfortunate sentimental streak. So here you are. Can you guess where he is?" he asks.

I only nod. Clearly Seneca Crane is dead, executed for the crime of letting Peeta and me live. No, wait, that's not what he said. _For the crime of letting_ _ **me**_ _live._ It's clear I'm to bear the brunt of the blame for this situation. I'm the one who pulled out the nightlock berries, after all.

He continues. "After that, there was nothing to do but let you play out your little scenario. And you were pretty good, too, with the love-crazed schoolgirl bit, fawning over the dashing young hero. The people in the Capitol were quite convinced. Unfortunately, not everyone in the districts fell for your act." My face must register at least a flicker of bewilderment, because he addresses it. "This, of course, you don't know. You have no access to information about the mood in other districts. In several of them, however, people viewed your little trick with the berries as an act of defiance, not an act of love. And if a girl from District Twelve of all places can defy the Capitol and walk away unharmed, what is to stop them from doing the same?" he says. "What is to prevent, say, an uprising?"

It takes a moment for his last sentence to sink in. Peeta seems to get it faster. "There have been uprisings?" he asks. The idea both chills and somewhat elates me.

"Not yet," President Snow says. "But they'll follow if the course of things doesn't change. And uprisings have been known to lead to revolution." He rubs a spot over his left eyebrow, the very spot where I myself get headaches. "Do you have any idea what that would mean? How many people would die? What conditions those left would have to face? Whatever problems anyone may have with the Capitol, believe me when I say that if it released its grip on the districts for even a short time, the entire system would collapse."

I don't know how I dare to say the next words, but I do. "It must be very fragile, if a handful of berries can bring it down."

There's a long pause while he examines me. I don't dare say anything, and neither does Peeta. Finally President Snow says, "It is fragile, but not in the way that you suppose."

There's a knock at the door then, and the Capitol man sticks his head in. "Her mother wants to know if you want tea."

"I would. I would like tea," says the president. My mother comes in and presents a tea service. She still looks pale and strained, but she seems relieved to see us. _What, did she think we'd be beaten or dead already?_ And then I think, _Well, why not?_ It's a sobering thought.

President Snow is making smalltalk with my mother about how no one thinks to offer tea to presidents, and the whole thing makes me sick. I want to vomit, I want to run away, I want to scream, I want to cry, I want to punch Snow in the face. Instead of doing any of that, I just sit quietly and wait for him to address me again.

"We didn't mean to start any uprisings," Peeta says once my mother has left the room.

"I believe you. It doesn't matter. Your stylists turned out to be prophetic with their wardrobe choice. District Twelve, the tributes set on fire. You have provided a spark that, left unattended, may grow to an inferno that destroys Panem," he says.

"I'm the one who pulled out the berries," I say. "Why don't you just kill me?" I can feel the look of horror from Peeta but I don't dare look away from President Snow.

"Publicly?" he asks. "That would only add fuel to the flames."

"Arrange an accident, then," I say.

"Who would buy it?" he asks. "Not you, if you were watching."

"No one has to die!" Peeta says. "Just tell us what you want us to do, and we'll do it."

"If only it were that simple," President Snow says. He picks up a beautifully iced cookie and examines it. "Lovely. Your mother made these?" he asks me.

"I did," Peeta says.

"Ah, yes, the baker's son," President Snow says. "Still keeping up the family business?"

"I mostly bake at home now," Peeta says. "My family still runs the bakery."

"Yes, the bakery, where your family works all day, and the apartment upstairs where they sleep all night," President Snow says lazily. "A bakery fire wouldn't arouse any suspicion at all." He stares at Peeta to let his words sink in, before turning to me. "And how is your handsome cousin? Him I can easily kill if we don't come to a happy resolution," he says. "You aren't doing him any favors by disappearing into the woods with him each Sunday, either."

My throat wants to close up but I force words out. "If you've been watching us then you know all we do is hunt. We've been doing it for years. We're not… plotting anything. There's no harm done, other than his family having food to eat."

President Snow smiles again. "If the lovesick schoolgirl is seen sleeping around, I'd say that constitutes harm done to your carefully constructed image. Wouldn't you agree, _Mrs. Mellark_?"

Even as I'm doing it I can't believe I am, but I can't hold in the laugh I bark out in President Snow's face. I can tell by his reaction that no one has done that to him in a long time. I reign myself in as quickly as I can, but the sheer absurdity of his accusation has pushed me over the line from paralyzing terror into liberating madness. That's the only explanation I have for what I say next. "If you actually think I'm sleeping around, then you should have executed your surveillance team, not your Head Gamemaker."

I can't believe my audacity, and for a moment I'm sure it has cost me my life. But if my laugh has damaged President Snow's stern composure, my comeback has completely destroyed it. His mouth actually drops open for a moment before he contains himself. "Oh my dear Mrs. Mellark. I know about the kiss."

I have completely lost my mind. "You really don't," I say dismissively.

President Snow regains his smile. "I happen to know that on the very first night you had free after the victory celebrations, you and your 'cousin' snuck out behind your house to kiss in a most un-cousin-like manner." His eyes cut quickly to Peeta, looking for a reaction, but Peeta doesn't give him one. I've never been happier that I had the nerve to be honest with Peeta that night, so none of this is being revealed to him only now.

I must not be in control of my body anymore, because I feel myself smirk at the president. "You only got a report about that and didn't see the surveillance for yourself." Another slip of his smile tells me I'm right. "I didn't kiss him. He kissed me before I could stop him, and I made sure he knew never to try it again."

"What about you, Mr. Mellark?" President Snow asks, turning his full attention to Peeta. "You seem remarkably unmoved that your wife is spending hours alone in the woods with a man who clearly wants to be more than just friends."

"It's not news to me," Peeta says calmly. "She's been hunting with Gale for years. He's her closest friend. And that's all he is to her."

"But that's not all she is to him, hmm?" President Snow asks, trying and failing again to get a rise out of Peeta. "Do you really trust him around your wife, after that kiss?"

"I trust my wife," Peeta says evenly. "Around anyone." I wonder if President Snow hears the unspoken _Even you_ that my mind attaches to that statement.

"There's no need to hurt Gale," I say. "He's just my friend. He's been my friend for years. Besides, everyone thinks we're cousins now."

"I'm only interested in how it affects your dynamic with Peeta, thereby affecting the mood in the districts," he says.

"Gale has no effect on our relationship," Peeta says. "Is it that unusual for someone to have a friend other than their spouse?"

President Snow regards us for a long moment. "I have to say the act you've put on here today has been very convincing. Of course, it wouldn't fly on camera at all. No, you'll have to do much better if the uprisings are to be averted. This tour will be your only chance to turn things around."

"This isn't an act," I say.

"Doesn't matter," President Snow says. "It's still not good enough for the cameras."

"We'll convince everyone in the districts that we're madly in love, that we weren't defying the Capitol, that we couldn't bear to live without one another," Peeta says.

President Snow rises and dabs his puffy lips with a napkin. "Aim higher in case you fall short."

"What do you mean? How can we aim higher?" I ask.

He drops the napkin and retrieves his book, and walks around the desk towards me. I don't turn my head to watch him, so I flinch when he whispers in my ear, "Convince _me_." Then he walks away and the door clicks shut behind him.

Peeta and I turn to look at each other, and we're immediately in each other's arms. We don't even talk, we just cling to each other. Hanging on for dear life.

…..

From outside, I can hear a car start and then fade away into the distance. It's not until I hear footsteps in the hall that Peeta backs away from me and holds me by the shoulders. "Listen, we need to pull ourselves together. We can't let your mother or Prim know what's going on." I only nod, just barely holding back tears. He kisses my forehead and holds me close again. "You need to be strong for them, just like you've always been."

When I hear the footsteps stop we both sit back. I take several deep breaths to try to compose myself before my mother opens the door and walks in. I can see Peeta sipping his tea, I have no idea how he can pretend to be that calm. I know if I tried that I'd wind up pouring tea all over myself.

"Is everything all right?" Mom asks.

"Oh, fine," says Peeta. "We never see it on television, but the president always visits the victors before the tour to wish them luck." It's the same idea I came up with earlier, but Peeta makes it sound believable. Sometimes it scares me how good Peeta is at lying, but it's a skill that's kept me alive too many times for me to really fault him for it.

My mother's face floods with relief. "Oh. I thought there was some kind of trouble."

"No, not at all," I say. "The trouble will start when my prep team sees how I've let my eyebrows grow back in." Peeta dutifully laughs, and my mother does as well. I make an effort to join them, but it sounds half-hearted to me. At least my mother doesn't seem to realize the extreme danger we're all in. Looking at her now, I know that Peeta was right that we had to lie to her. Despite how we've repaired our relationship in the last few months, there was no going back after I took over caring for the family when I was eleven. I'll always have to protect her.

"We should probably head home," I say. "They'll be there for us pretty soon."

We make our goodbyes and head back to our house. As soon as the front door closes behind us I fall against it and sit on the floor. Peeta joins me and we simply hold each other for a while longer.

"Listen, Katniss, we'll be okay," Peeta says. "All we have to do is convince people that we love each other. How hard can that be?"

I'm not holding back my sobs anymore. "He just said, our real love isn't good enough. I can't fake anything, Peeta. I'll probably manage to convince everyone that I hate you."

"We'll handle it," Peeta says as he strokes my hair. "I'll do most of the talking. You just swoon over me whenever someone asks you a question."

"I don't know if that'll be good enough," I say. "I was the one who pulled out those berries, I'm the one who has to convince people I did it purely for love. No amount of you talking will do that."

"Just think of it this way," Peeta says, still trying to sooth me, "All of those silly girl-in-love things that normally make you gag, whenever there's a camera just do them. That's what he's looking for; nobody's going to defy the Capitol because of a silly girl. If you completely embarrass yourself, then you can't spark an uprising."

We sit quietly on the floor for a while before I can focus on anything other than sheer terror. "Peeta, the smell of blood… it was on his breath." Peeta gives me a confused look, so I continue, "When he whispered to me right at the end there. His breath smelled like blood."

Peeta thinks for a moment. "What does he do? Drink it?"

I imagine him sipping it from a teacup. Dipping a cookie into the stuff and pulling it out dripping red. The idea is so absurd that it makes me chuckle. I explain my idea to Peeta, and soon we're both laughing. Gallows humor, the last refuge of the desperate. But I'm able to push back the terror. For now.

…..

The Tour is a disaster.

The worst stop, by any analysis, is our first one, in Eleven. It would have been distressing enough facing the home of Thresh and Rue without President Snow's threats hanging over us as well, but as it is I literally make myself ill with dread. It's as bad as our old school trips to the mines after my father was killed. Going into the arena hadn't unnerved me this much.

But in Eleven we make a real concerted effort to quell any tendency at uprisings. Peeta speaks glowingly of Thresh and Rue, showing great respect for the Eleven tributes. He thanks them for saving our lives, reinforcing our love story. We even offer each of their families one month of our Victor's winnings each year, a ploy to show the generosity of the Capitol try to engender some gratitude for the compassion the Capitol is showing for their losses.

However, it all goes wrong when I offer my own thanks to the families, and thank the District for their gift of bread. An old man in the crowd whistles Rue's four-note melody from the arena, and in response, the entire crowd gives me the District 12 three-finger salute, the one all of Twelve gave me when I was reaped, the one that I offered Rue after covering her with flowers. This is a mass act of defiance, exactly the kind of thing Peeta and I are supposed to be trying to stop, but what could we have done to stop this? This was done in unison by the entire crowd, clearly it had been planned long before Peeta and I had even arrived in Eleven. There is nothing we could have done to prevent it, but we will be punished for it. Our families will suffer for it.

And the people in the districts will suffer as well, as shown by the example of the man who had whistled Rue's tune as the signal to the crowd. Peacekeepers bring him up on the verandah we were speaking from and shoot him in the head, so quickly that Peeta and I haven't even made it back into the building yet. And we hear two more shots once we do. Who else has died because of us today? Did some over-eager members of the crowd try to attack the Peacekeepers? Did the Peacekeepers find more people they thought were responsible for planning this? Will Rue or Thresh's families be punished for our gesture, which seems so much more defiant on the heels of the crowd's actions?

All of these questions are still swirling in my head when Haymitch leads us up a series of staircases and hallways, culminating with a climb up a ladder through a trap door. We finally end up in the dome at the very top of the Justice Building, a room that looks like it hasn't been used in a decade, and one in which Haymitch seems to think we can talk freely. He wants to know what happened after our speeches, and as I'm still too frazzled to speak, Peeta tells him.

Haymitch takes everything in for a minute, then looks back and forth between Peeta and me a few times. "There's more you're not telling me. You kids can't hide things from me."

"Yeah, cause you've never hidden things from us," I say bitterly.

"Now listen, Sweetheart-"

As beaten down by the day's events as I am, I have no energy for an argument with Haymitch. I slump down into a dusty chair, not even caring that I probably just ruined Cinna's beautiful dress, and say to Peeta, "Oh, just tell him." Peeta gives me a questioning look, so I add, "Misery loves company. Go ahead and tell him."

Peeta relates our meeting with President Snow to Haymitch, who becomes more and more agitated as the story progresses, but the only part he comments on is the president's accusation about Gale and me.

"Snow really accused you of sleeping with your friend hunter boy?" he asks me, genuine amusement in his eyes.

"Yes," I answer.

"Are you?" he asks.

"No! Haymitch!"

"Just checking, Sweetheart."

I look over at Peeta with fresh despair over our plight. "You see? This is exactly what I was talking about. You said it would be so easy to show everyone how in love we are, but even Haymitch has to check and see if I'm having an affair with Gale. I can't convince anyone of anything, no matter how true it is."

Peeta opens his mouth to respond, but Haymitch doesn't give him the chance. "So what else happened with Snow?"

Peeta gives me what I'm sure is supposed to be a comforting look, then answers Haymitch. "That was pretty much it. He threatened our families, he said that we had put on 'a pretty good act' in person but that we'd have to do better on the Tour, and he left."

Haymitch considers everything for a moment. "You kids were supposed to calm down a rebellion, and your best idea is another rebellious act?"

Now Peeta is starting to get agitated. "Haymitch-"

"It doesn't matter." I cut in before anything can escalate too far. They both give me questioning looks, so I continue. "It doesn't matter. Nothing we did today made any difference one way or the other. That man gave a signal, and the whole crowd reacted in unison. That didn't happen spur of the moment. They didn't do that in reaction to anything that happened today. That was planned beforehand, probably long beforehand. There was nothing we could have done today that would have prevented it." I look hard at Haymitch. "Tell me I'm wrong."

Haymitch looks back at me, just as hard, but he confirms my thoughts. "You're not wrong. Snow's got you on a fool's errand. If the other districts are anything like Eleven, then there's nothing you can do to prevent uprisings. Not now."

Haymitch has just confirmed my worst fears, but something about his words sticks out to me, and I turn away from him as I try to puzzle out exactly what it is. While I'm distracted, Peeta asks, "So, Haymitch, now that you know everything, what do you think we should do?"

"Exactly what Snow tells you," Haymitch says. "You read your Capitol-supplied speeches. You don't go off script. You smile and kiss at the parties. It won't calm the districts, but blind obedience may placate Snow."

"But that's not what he told us to do," Peeta counters. "He didn't say to read speeches and kiss. He told us to calm the districts. In order to obey, that's what we have to do."

"In that case," Haymitch says, "I'd start saying goodbye to your families as soon as you get back to Twelve. Assuming they live that long."

I finally break my silence, though I don't look up from the spot on the floor I've been staring at. "Well, good thing we told you everything, isn't it, Mentor?"

"Now listen, Sweetheart-"

I don't let him say whatever it is he's trying to say. "Stuff it, Haymitch. Do you really want us to tell you everything from now on?"

"I think that would be best," Haymitch replies.

I finally look up at him with the coldest stare I can manage. "Fine. You want us to be honest with you, then you need to start being honest with us."

"What are you talking about? If this is about the Games strategy-"

I cut him off again. "We said President Snow wanted us to calm the districts and prevent uprisings. Plural uprisings, as in each district may rise up on its own. But you then immediately called it _a_ rebellion, like there's one unified resistance behind all of this." Haymitch's eyes widen, and that's all the confirmation I need that I'm not just imagining things. "That's quite a leap to make, scattered uprisings to organized rebellion. In this new era of mutual honesty, is there anything you'd like to share with us?"

Haymitch and I stare at each other. We can have entire conversations with our stares. But this one is more like a battle of wills. This is a test, and Haymitch knows it. He wants us to share everything with him, but he apparently has information about a rebellion that he doesn't want to share with us. Is there actually a rebellion? Does someone want to start a rebellion? Is this just a drunken fantasy of Haymitch's? Or will he stonewall me, and give up any pretense of cooperation between us?

After a long moment, he finally answers my question. "No," he says carefully. Stonewall.

I roll my eyes and stand up. "Well then I guess we're done here. We'd better go, Peeta and I have a dinner to attend."

We leave Haymitch behind as we descend the ladder out of the dome. I can hear several things shatter in the room behind us, but we don't look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm skipping over a lot the Tour, because I don't want to re-tell parts of the story that are identical to canon. You've already read the details of what happened in District 11, I don't think I need to copy and paste that chapter out of Catching Fire. The point of the story is to show what's _different_ in this AU.
> 
> Next chapter: The rest of the Victory Tour. What rabbit will they pull out of their hat in the final interview?
> 
> Preview quote from Chapter 12:
> 
> _"You two have got nothing left to lose. May as well go for broke."_


	12. Go For Broke

The rest of the Tour falls into a horrible routine. We wake up on the train, get prepped and dressed, recite our Capitol-supplied speeches, get prepped and dressed again, have dinner, and return to the train. Some districts include a small tour or some staged sightseeing; some districts film us walking from the train to the Justice Building while others transport us in an armored car.

But the only thing that really changes from district to district is the mood of the crowds gathered to see us. Ten and Five have the same beaten-down feeling as Twelve. Six, Seven, and Nine feel like what I imagine the Victory Tour normally feels like, the crowds there are bored more than anything. The Career districts Two and One are actually hostile to us, they don't like the fact that two nobodies from Twelve took out their promising tributes. It doesn't help that I personally killed Marvel, Glimmer, and Cato, and was indirectly responsible for the death of Clove as well.

But Districts Eight, Four, and Three seem like exactly what President Snow was afraid of: like a pot ready to boil over. The crowds watch us with near hysteria. They chant my name, not with exuberance or admiration, but with rage. When the Peacekeepers try to contain the unruly crowds, the crowds push back. When I see the people in these districts, I think to myself, how stupid is President Snow? Did he really think there was anything that Peeta and I could possibly have done about this? Or is he as misinformed about the actual mood of the district residents as he was about that kiss with Gale?

Peeta and I actually discuss it one night, after leaving Four. That day we had seen the ocean, recited our speeches, escaped the near riot that followed them, and attended a banquet filled with delicious seafood that I barely ate any of because my nerves have been shot since the moment President Snow showed up in District 12. We had thought that the crowd in Eight was an anomaly, but after seeing the reaction to us in Four, not to mention what had happened in Eleven, we knew that wasn't the case. That night, snuggled up in bed together, we hold on to each other with just a bit more urgency than usual, both of us rattled by the events of the day.

"There's nothing we can do," Peeta says, echoing my own thoughts.

"It's like our mere presence is sparking uprisings in some districts," I say.

"It makes a certain amount of sense," Peeta says. "If pulling out those berries is seen as an act of defiance against the Capitol, then the two of us alive are a symbol of its success. Our existence is an act of defiance."

"Then what do we do, Peeta?" I ask, desperate for an answer. Some answer. Any answer.

For the first time, Peeta doesn't have the words to comfort me. "There's nothing we can do now. The spark is lit, and anything we do is only fueling the fire."

"We're not even doing anything!" I cry out, my panic and rage and frustration beginning to overwhelm me. "We're not trying to spark anything! They're just going crazy at the sight of us!"

Peeta takes a moment to calm me down, holding me close and stroking my hair and quietly whispering in my ear as he does when I have a nightmare. Except now we're living the nightmare. Sometimes I feel like such a child when Peeta treats me like this, but sometimes this expression of his love is the only thing that can cut through my panic.

"I know you don't want to hear this," Peeta says after a bit, "but it's not us who are driving these people wild. It's you."

"It's both of us," I say dismissively.

"I'm clearly the lesser part of this duo," Peeta says. "You're the one who dug me out of the mud, nursed me back to health, risked your life to get my medicine, saved me from Cato, pulled out those berries rather than kill me, and successfully put one over on the Capitol. I'm just the guy you saved."

"That's not true," I protest. "You saved me from Cato too; you wouldn't have needed me to do most of that if you hadn't fought Cato for me. And we were both going to take those berries. And you were willing to die for me a long time before I was suddenly willing to die for you."

"But, Katniss, you're forgetting one very important thing," he says, as if he's a teacher dealing with a stubborn pupil. "People love you. You're Katniss Everdeen."

"Mellark," I correct him, annoyed that my own husband got my name wrong.

Peeta smiles and kisses my forehead. "As much as I love that you're Katniss Mellark, none of these people see you that way. Have you noticed how every introduction in every district has called you Everdeen?"

I had, in fact, noticed that, and it pissed me off. I had gone so far as to speak to Effie Trinket about it after our trip to Nine, she was supposed to be in charge of protocol and things like that so I asked her if she could get the rest of the officials to get my name right. She had come back with some sort of nonsense excuse about how I had to be introduced on the Victory Tour under the same name I used as a tribute. But in the more paranoid parts of my mind, which I was indulging more and more lately, I thought it was just another mind game from President Snow. It didn't make sense, though; if his goal was to present us as a convincing love story, you'd think using my married name would be a great help. Was President Snow compromising his ultimate goal just to mess with me? Or was there more I wasn't seeing?

"Think about it," Peeta says. "Right from the very beginning, in the tribute parade. We were both in identical costumes, we were both smiling and waving at the crowd, but who did everyone go nuts over? Whose name were they chanting? Who was the Girl on Fire and who was the other tribute from Twelve?"

I want to object, but he does have a point. We were both in the same outfit, but I never heard anything about the Boy on Fire. "But you were the one who connected with people," I say. "You were the one who could make people like you. I just tried not to make them hate me. Besides, you were the one who made them like me. Wasn't that the whole plan you and Haymitch came up with? You made them like me when you said you were in love with me. "

"I didn't make them like you," Peeta says, "I just gave them permission. They already liked you. They liked your courage at the reaping. They liked your poise in the parade. Your obvious love of Prim in the interview. All I did was confirm what they already wanted to believe. I went up there and said, Yeah, all of us in District Twelve who know her better think she's awesome, too. I gave the Capitol a storyline they could latch onto, but you're the one who made people like you."

I think about everything Peeta's said. "So how do I make them not like me? How do I make them not want to rebel?"

"I don't think you can," he says. "Even if you made them stop liking you, their anger about that would probably still fuel the kind of riots we've been seeing. The only thing we could possibly do to improve things would be to disappear entirely."

"Which President Snow would never let us do," I say miserably. "That doesn't exactly leave us a lot of options."

Peeta sighs. "Like I said, there's nothing we can do."

…..

My nightmares get worse as the Tour goes on. Even with Peeta there, I rarely make it through the night. Effie offers me pills to make me sleep, but they don't stop the nightmares, they just make it harder to wake up from them. The one night I take the pills, I scream in terror for over an hour while Peeta tries to coax me out of the half-awake haze the drugs have left me in.

It occurs to me that I can't remember the last time I woke up for one of Peeta's nightmares. So one night when we're lying awake after mine have woken us, I ask him about it. "Peeta, do you still have nightmares?"

"Yes, sometimes," he answers quietly. "They've been getting worse on the tour, just like yours have."

"How come I never wake up for yours?" I ask.

"I guess I just don't react as strongly to them," he says. "Not as physically, I mean. No screaming or thrashing around. I'm more likely to be paralyzed in fear rather than lashing out."

I lightly stroke the side of his face. "You know you could wake me up. I'm here for you."

Peeta offers a small smile. "I know. But it's not necessary." His arms pull me to him a bit tighter. "My nightmares are usually about losing you, so when I wake up and you're still here that's enough to calm me down. As soon as I realize you're here with me and feel you in my arms, then I'm okay."

Sometimes Peeta will speak of our love so beautifully, yet so casually that it completely catches me off guard. Even after so many months of living with him, he still stuns me with his words. I could never even hope to express the depth of my love for Peeta with the profound eloquence he uses to describe his love for me.

"Be so much worse if I had to sleep alone," he says.

"Well, you'll never have to worry about that again," I tell him, and punctuate my statement with a long kiss, the kind of kiss that we both know won't end with just a kiss, as usual hoping my actions will express what my words cannot.

…..

By the time we reach the Capitol, we are despondent. We make endless appearances to adoring crowds, but it will make no difference. There is no danger of an uprising here among the privileged, among those whose names are never placed in the reaping balls, whose children never die for the supposed crimes committed generations ago. We don't need to convince anybody in the Capitol of our love, and the people we were supposed to convince in the districts don't care about something as inconsequential as the love lives of a couple of Victors. Whatever we've managed to do on this tour was too little, too late.

Back in our old quarters in the Training Center, I'm accidentally the one who suggests the strategy for our final interview with Caesar Flickerman. "I swear if he calls me Everdeen I'm going to tear some of that ridiculous blue hair out of his head."

Haymitch looks thoughtful for a moment. "Maybe that's not such a bad idea, Sweetheart." I must look at him like he just said he was going sober, because he holds up his hands and quickly adds, "I'm not saying you actually physically attack the man. But this interview is airing live. Maybe it's time you two show Snow that he's not the only one with power here."

"But he _is_ the only one with power," I spit out.

"He's already threatened to kill our families," Peeta says. "Why would we try to antagonize him in a public interview?"

"If you two were describing his demands right, then odds are he'll kill your families anyway," Haymitch says far too casually, as if losing everyone you love is an everyday occurrence. "You two have got nothing left to lose. May as well go for broke."

"And what exactly would we be trying to accomplish?" Peeta asks.

"Remind him of the pull you two have with the people," Haymitch says. "Show him that it's in his best interests to keep you working for him, rather than against him."

I'm still not buying it, and Haymitch can see that. "I'm not saying you go out there and try to call for a revolution quick before they can cut the feed. I'm saying something small, like correcting your name. Put Caesar on the spot. The crowd will be on your side. The audience in the Districts will understand what you're trying to do. It'll show Snow that you have power and are willing to use it, without actually threatening him because it's such a small thing."

"And then what?" I ask. "What's the goal here?"

"Get him to talk to you," Haymitch suggests. "And try to convince him the he's better off with you two using what power you have for him and not against him. Convince him it'll be worth his while to not kill anyone."

In my head I hear President Snow's directive, "Convince me." And now I know we must, though not in the way he meant it. Part of me still can't believe we're in this situation, where we have to make a desperate gamble to try to save our families. We might as well still be in the arena. This interview might as well be the feast where I got Peeta's medicine.

"I can try," Peeta says, turning to me. "If we can get some time with him, I can try to convince him."

Peeta has a way with words, but I think this may be even beyond him. "Convince him of what, exactly? To let us off even though we failed?"

"I'll tell him what we've been discussing the whole time. That this isn't even about us. That the people don't care about our relationship, that it's our mere survival that's sparking things. Make it Seneca Crane's fault, not ours. Make it President Snow's fault, for sending us out there with the wrong idea from the beginning. Convince him to give us a second chance with a better plan."

"Do we have a better plan?" I ask.

Peeta frowns. "No, not really."

"One step at a time, Sweetheart," Haymitch says. I consider my mentor carefully. I'm still not sure how much I trust him after the way he lied to us in District 11. But he does have more experience dealing with the Capitol than either Peeta or I do, and his strategy did bring two tributes home from the Hunger Games for the first time. And the truth is, we don't have any better ideas.

So that's what we do.

…..

It may be the shortest Victory Tour interview in history.

"You've been waiting to see them, and here they are! The Star-Crossed Lovers from District 12! Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark!"

Caesar Flickerman, in his twinkling midnight-blue suit, with his hair, eyelids, and lips dyed powder blue, looks like seeing us again is the happiest day of his life. He has no idea what we're about to do to him.

Once we're seated, Caesar starts off lightly. "So how's Panem's favorite couple?"

We agreed earlier, if we're going to do this, we do it right off the top. "Are we really Panem's favorite couple?" I ask Caesar. We also determined that, however unsuited I am to the task, as the aggrieved party I'm going to have to take the lead here.

"Of course you are!" Caesar crows.

"So, people follow the news about us?" I ask.

"I dare say a great many do," he says.

"Do you, Caesar?" Peeta asks. "Did you do research for this interview, so you'd have all the most up to date information about us?"

"I wouldn't be doing my job if I hadn't," Caesar says solemnly, but I can see in his eyes he's mystified as to why we've been asking these questions.

I don't leave him in the dark any longer. "If that's the case, Caesar, then what's my name?"

He shifts uncomfortable in his seat, but keeps his smile plastered on his face. "Katniss Everdeen," he says. There are murmurs in the crowd; they can tell something is going awry, and they're not used to that.

"You watch mandatory Presidential broadcasts, don't you, Caesar?" Peeta asks far too innocently.

"Of course I do!" he answers hastily.

"So then you know that Katniss and I are married?" Peeta asks.

"Yes!" Caesar latches onto the mention of our marriage, launching into a long expression of how happy he was to hear the news, of how in love we must be to have married so quickly, of how much he wishes he could have been there.

"Caesar," I ask when he pauses for breath, "You know that when two people get married, the wife will take her husband's last name as her own."

"Yes, I know that's the custom in some districts," Caesar says, uneasy again.

"Then what's my name?" I ask again.

Caesar doesn't answer at all this time. He must have been told what name to use, and he won't dare disobey that directive. It obviously never occurred to anyone that we would put him on the spot like this. "You know, Caesar, we've been through eleven districts now. And not once in any of those eleven appearances has anyone used my correct married name." I turn my attention to the audience. "You all know, you saw those events on television." The murmuring in the crowd is getting louder. They don't know what's going on on stage right now. I turn my attention back to Caesar. "But I thought you, Caesar, you of all people would do me that small courtesy. You're always so well prepared for every tribute interview. And you were so supportive of us after we won the Games last year. Everyone in the Capitol was, their support is a big reason why we won. I guess I just thought that, in the Capitol of all places, with you doing this interview, I thought this would be the one time someone would call me by my correct married name."

I know I'm no good at acting, so I have no idea if I've managed to convince the audience that I'm actually hurt by this slight. Peeta makes a show of pulling my head against his shoulder and stroking my hair, ruining the elaborate style Flavius spent half the day working it into but putting on a very good display of trying to make me feel better.

Caesar is floundering, unsure of what to say for possibly the first time in his career. Luckily his salvation comes after only a few moments, in the form of a surprise appearance by President Snow himself.

"I haven't yet had the opportunity to congratulate the happy couple in person," he says. He clasps Peeta's hand and gives him an approving slap on the shoulder. The he embraces me, enfolding me in the smell of blood and roses, and plants a puffy kiss on my cheek. When he pulls back, his fingers dig into my arms. "Congratulations, Mrs. Mellark," he says with forced ease. I want to take some small satisfaction at his use of the name, but his snake eyes are as cold as stone.

I do my best to mimic the smile masking his face. "Will we be seeing you at the ball tonight, President Snow?"

He raises an eyebrow, unsure where I'm going now. "I do generally put in an appearance at the parties I host."

"It's just, now that we've seen all of the districts on the Tour, there are so few people we can really talk about it with. So few people that really understand what's going on in all the districts." I pause here, to make sure he takes my meaning. "It would be a privilege to have the chance to discuss it with you. You must have such a unique perspective on things."

The president's eyes narrow as if he's reappraising me. "We'll have to see if the opportunity arises."

…..

The party that night, held in the banquet room of President Snow's mansion, has no equal. Extravagance piled on top of decadence piled on top of extravagance. But the real star of the evening is, of course, the food. Tables laden with delicacies line the walls. Whole roasted cows and pigs and goats still turning on spits. Huge platters of fowl stuffed with savory fruits and nuts. Ocean creatures drizzled in sauces or begging to be dipped in spicy concoctions. Countless cheeses, breads, vegetables, sweets, waterfalls of wine, and streams of spirits that flicker with flames. And I can't imagine having a single bite of any of it.

My stomach has been knotted with nerves ever since we left the interview stage. All I can think of is the tremendous gamble we took, and another still to come when we speak to the President again. Prim's life hangs in the balance. Even Peeta's warm hand wrapped around my hip doesn't calm me like it usually does. He guides me around the room, chatting amiably with our many admirers, while I may as well be a target dummy for all I contribute to the proceedings.

At one point my prep team finds us. "Why aren't you eating?" asks Octavia.

As usual, Peeta covers for me. "She has been, but I don't think she can hold another bite right now."

They all laugh as if that's the silliest thing they've ever heard. "No one lets that stop them!" says Flavius. They lead us over to a table that holds tiny stemmed wineglasses filled with clear liquid. "Drink this!"

Peeta picks one up to take a sip and they lose it. "Not here!" shrieks Octavia.

"You have to do it in there," says Venia, pointing to doors that lead to the toilets. "Or you'll get it all over the floor!"

Peeta looks at the glass again and puts it together. "You mean this will make me puke?"

My prep team laughs hysterically. "Of course, so you can keep eating," says Octavia. "I've been in there twice already. How else would you have any fun at a feast?"

I'm speechless, staring at the pretty little glasses and all they imply. Peeta sets his back on the table with such precision you'd think it might detonate. "Come on, Katniss, let's dance."

Slow music filters down from the night sky projected over the room. Peeta pulls me into his arms and we move in a circle with practically no steps at all. We're quiet for a while. I feel Peeta press his lips against my scalp, and they stay there for a long time. Finally he straightens and speaks in a strained voice. "You go along, thinking you can deal with it, thinking maybe they're not so bad, and then you—" He cuts himself off there.

All I can think of is the emaciated bodies of the children that used to occupy our kitchen table in the Seam as my mother prescribed what the parents couldn't give. More food. Now that we're rich, she'll send some home with them, but only the very desperate will accept anything, and sometimes not even then. Meanwhile here in the Capitol they're vomiting for the pleasure of filling their bellies again and again.

One day last month when I dropped by to give Hazelle the game, Vick was home sick with a bad cough. Being part of Gale's family, the kid has to eat better than ninety percent of the rest of District 12. But he still spent about fifteen minutes talking about how they'd opened a can of corn syrup from Parcel Day and each had a spoonful on bread and were going to maybe have more later in the week. How Hazelle had said he could have a bit in a cup of tea to soothe his cough, but he wouldn't feel right unless the others had some, too. If it's like that at Gale's, what's it like in the other houses?

"Peeta, they bring us here to fight to the death for their entertainment," I say. "Really, this is nothing by comparison."

"I know. I know that. It's just sometimes I can't stand it anymore. To the point where… I'm not sure what I'll do." He pauses, then whispers, "Maybe we were wrong, Katniss."

"About what?" I ask.

"About trying to subdue things in the districts," he says.

My head turns swiftly from side to side, but no one seems to have heard. The camera crew got sidetracked at a table of shellfish, and the couples dancing around us are either too drunk or too self- involved to notice. "You can't say that," I hiss.

"I'm sorry," he says. He knows. "I think I'm going to hit the washroom. Maybe splash some cold water on my face."

That sounds like a good idea. "Don't ruin your makeup," I say.

He smiles tiredly. "What do you think they'd do to me if I just washed it all off?"

"Probably nothing good," I warn.

Left on my own for a few moments, I decide that some cold water actually sounds pretty good. It seems to be the one beverage they don't have a table full of here, so I head for the washroom and drink a few palmfulls from the sink, careful not to smudge my own makeup.

When I emerge, there's someone waiting for me, and it's not Peeta. "You wished to speak with me, Miss Everdeen?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't realize how long it had been since the last chapter I posted. Sorry about that! It wasn't even on purpose this time! In the interim, I finished my old envy-themed fic, The Grass is Always Greener. Check it out if you haven't read the ending yet.
> 
> So this chapter has a bit more of quoting the book than I normally like to use, but I thought that was an important scene to include for this story.
> 
> Next chapter: The safety of their families comes with a high price. How much will Katniss and Peeta be willing to pay?
> 
> Preview quote from Chapter 13:
> 
> _"We've done it with other victors."_


	13. The Deal

" _You wished to speak with me, Miss Everdeen?"_

…..

"It's Mellark," I spit out, because it's practically a reflex by now. President Snow looks amused by the vehemence of my statement. "Um, we should wait for Peeta," I say weakly.

President Snow waves his hand dismissively. "I believe Mr. Mellark is currently occupied with Plutarch Heavensbee, our new Head Gamemaker. I'm sure we can discuss things between ourselves, aren't you?"

This isn't how it was supposed to be at all. Peeta and I should never have separated. Now I have no choice but to follow the president as he leads me away from the ballroom, around a corner into an empty hallway. "That was quite a stunt you pulled today," he says.

"We had to get your attention somehow," I say.

"Well you've certainly done that," he says. "So, what did you wish to discuss?"

I take a moment to try to steady myself. I should be able to do this. I don't have Peeta's ability to sway an audience, but I can make a deal. I haggle with Cray over the price of a turkey even when he could have executed me for being caught with the bird. This situation isn't any different.

I try very hard to convince myself of that.

President Snow is staring at me expectantly. I take a deep breath. No sense in trying to finesse the topic. That's Peeta's forte, not mine. "The Victory Tour. I think you've been using the wrong strategy from the beginning."

"Is that right?" President Snow says. "I've been running this country longer than you've been alive. Are you going to start teaching me strategy?"

"You've been trying to convince the districts that we're so much in love, that everything we did was purely out of love, and not a rebellion against you," I say.

"Yes," is all he says.

"That's not going to work. It doesn't matter if we defied the Capitol because we were crazy in love, we still defied the Capitol. Nobody cares about the why, the why isn't going to help calm anyone down. By promoting how in love we are, you're just promoting the fact that we defied the Capitol because of that love. And sometimes love itself is a defiance: We were supposed to kill each other in the arena, so the fact that we fell in love instead is itself a huge defiance of Capitol authority. So by promoting our love in the districts, you're taking two huge rebellions against the Capitol and rubbing them in everyone's faces."

President Snow pauses for a long moment before replying. "You didn't seem to be of this opinion when we last met."

"The last time we met, I was operating out of ignorance. I hadn't seen the conditions in the districts yet. I was also scared to death so I wasn't exactly thinking clearly."

This last seems to amuse him. "And you're not scared now?"

There's no point in not being honest with him. It's not like I'm any good at pretending, anyway. "When we met at my mother's house I was afraid that you'd harm my family, and I was desperate to try to avoid that by doing whatever you wanted me to. But doing whatever you wanted me to do has failed. Doing whatever you want me to do isn't good enough, because you don't really know what to make me do. You have problems you don't know how to fix. And if I want to continue to mollify you, if I want to keep my family safe, then I need to help solve your problems, even if blind obedience isn't the way to do it."

We're quiet for a long moment. Finally President Snow says, "Well then, by all means, what would you suggest?"

This is the point where I was depending on Peeta to come up with something brilliant. Left on my own, I have nothing to offer him but the truth. "Stop flaunting us in front of the districts. Our continued existence is a giant, walking, talking defiance of the Capitol. So stop promoting us. Let people forget about us. Taking us off television for six months would do a lot more to calm people down than having us kiss on camera every day. By then they'll have a new Victor to focus on and we can just fade into obscurity."

Amazingly, the president seems to actually consider this. "You may have a valid point, Mrs. Mellark," he says. "However, interest in the star-crossed lovers will never wane if you're still everyone's ideal vision of a glamorous young couple in love. Everyone will be too eager for updates about your love story. In order to fade into obscurity, we need to give people an ending to the story. We need to make you more… relatable. More mundane."

Making people less interested in us sounds like a great idea to me. "And how do we do that?" I ask.

Snow says one word, and it makes my blood run cold. "Children."

I can't speak. I can't even breathe. I never wanted children. Even before I was enemy number one for the absolute ruler of Panem, I thought the world was too risky to subject children to. And yet, at the same time, the now-familiar image of a young boy with Peeta's curls toddling across our kitchen springs to my mind, and it makes my heart ache in ways I've never let myself examine.

"The young, glamorous co-Victors will still attract a lot of attention. We need to bring you down to earth by making you more relatable to people," the president continues. "We've done it with other victors. Cecelia from District 8 has three children now."

I'm finally able to force words past my throat. "We were given shots before the Games. Neither one of us can have children for five years."

"What was easily taken away can be easily restored," President Snow says smoothly. "You can both be fertile before you leave the Capitol. If you want, you can be pregnant before you leave the Capitol."

"We'd prefer to try the old-fashioned way first," I bite out. Who knows what they might put in my womb if I give them the chance?

"Of course. So is that an agreement?" President Snow asks.

I shock myself with the steadiness of my voice and the audacity with which I continue to speak to President Snow. "I've always said I would never have kids so long as they might be reaped," I say.

The president gives me a small smile. "My dear Mrs. Mellark, are you attempting to… _negotiate_ with me?"

"I guess I am," I say. "If I'm bargaining for my family's safety, then I need to know that they're truly safe. Not just that they won't be killed today."

President Snow just stares at me. "Look," I say, "You saw today how eager the audience is to follow wherever Peeta and I lead them. And you saw on the Tour how little control we have over people once they get riled up. If the goal is for Peeta and me to fade from people's minds, then the last thing you want is us mentoring a family member, doing endless interviews and breaking every rule there is trying to get them home. So it really costs you nothing to guarantee their safety."

President Snow narrows his eyes at me. "Define 'family member.'"

I consider my response for just a moment, and mentally shrug. Haymitch did say to go for broke, and irrational audacity has gotten me this far. "Our kids. All of our kids, any kids we ever have. And my sister, Prim. And her kids. My 'cousins' the Hawthornes, and their kids. And Peeta's brothers' kids."

The president does the last thing I expect. He actually laughs at me. A deep, rumbling laugh that comes from his belly. "Is that all? Every member of two generations of three different families? Are you sure you don't want to include your grandchildren? Or find more fake cousins to rope into this arrangement?"

I find now that I'm sure I'm going to die, dealing with President Snow is surprisingly easy. "We both know how this works. If I get you to agree not to reap my kids, you'll reap Prim, just to show that you can. If I get you to agree not to reap Prim, you'll reap Rory. Or Vick. If I get you to agree not to reap anyone, you'll wait twelve years and reap their kids. Or you'll set off a bakery fire. Or a mine explosion. So if we're going to come to an agreement about my family's safety, it has to cover everyone. Otherwise you may as well just kill them now and leave me with nothing left to lose." I'm gambling an awful lot on the idea that the president wants to maintain leverage over me.

President Snow stares at me for a full minute. Then another. I stare back and try to keep my face impassive, betraying neither terror nor revulsion. Finally he says, "I wish Seneca Crane were still here just so I could kill him again for unleashing you upon Panem."

"It was the Games that unleashed me on Panem, not the Gamemaker," I say evenly.

President Snow returns to the topic at hand. "Anyone not eligible for the reaping would obviously also be ineligible for tesserae. And I would be loathe to reward poachers with such an exemption. Best that you hold your family gatherings inside the district from now on."

No tesserae and no hunting. Given that Haymitch had me half convinced that I had already seen Prim for the last time, I'll take it. "You'll have to let me tell them," I say. "If they can't take tesserae anymore, they'll need a reason."

President Snow considers for a moment. "Tell whom you wish," he says, "but if any word of this becomes public, steps will be taken to prove the rumors untrue." In other words, deal's off if anyone finds out about it.

I take a deep breath. I know this will be a fight. "And you have to let me help the Hawthornes."

"'Help?'" President Snow asks dubiously.

"Help support them," I say. "With my Victor's money. With no hunting and no tesserae they'll starve."

"Out of the question," he says far too calmly for a man sentencing five people to a slow death. "Victor's money is to be used by the Victor, not passed around as charity. You know that quite well, Mrs. Mellark."

I try another tactic. "Hazelle does laundry. I could hire her-"

"No, I don't think so," President Snow cuts me off. "That would look far too suspicious, I'm afraid."

"Haymitch!" I say a bit desperately. "Haymitch lives like a homeless person in his giant Victor's House. Doesn't it reflect badly on the Capitol and the glory of the Hunger Games for a Victor to live like that? Haymitch can hire Hazelle to clean up after him and make sure he gets a hot meal once a day."

President Snow considers for a long moment. "That would be acceptable."

"And he'll pay her quite generously." I know I'm pushing it, and President Snow gives me a look that says he knows it too. I hastily add, "Hazard pay. You haven't seen Haymitch's house." Though for all I know, he has.

President Snow is chuckling at me again when I hear Peeta behind me. I hear his heavy footsteps a few seconds before I hear him call out, "Katniss? Katniss, are you back here?"

"We're over here, Mr. Mellark," President Snow calls out. I listen as Peeta's footsteps approach from behind me, but I don't dare look away from the president. "Your lovely wife and I were just having a bit of a conversation. Would you like to fill Mr. Mellark in on our little agreement?"

Peeta slips an arm around my back as I answer. "I'd prefer to speak to him privately, if that's all right. Assuming we actually do have an agreement?"

"You and I have reached an agreement, Mrs. Mellark, however I believe we will need Mr. Mellark's cooperation if we are to move forward. How do you propose to inform me of his acceptance or rejection of our plan?"

Him referring to this as _our plan_ makes my gut churn, but I manage to keep my face impassive. "President Snow, I thought we had agreed to stop lying to each other?"

His face grows hard. "Do you believe I have been lying, Mrs. Mellark?"

"We both know you'll know of Peeta's decision the same time I do. At least your people will."

President Snow gives me another one of his hateful smiles. "No, I certainly shan't make the mistake of underestimating you again. Perhaps you would be interested to know there have recently been some changes made among my surveillance personnel. It was pointed out to me that the performance of my previous team was less than satisfactory."

If I had anything in my stomach I would throw up. My flippant remarks, made merely so I didn't feel completely powerless in President Snow's presence, have cost people their lives. How many people are involved in spying on a new victor? Especially one who is already inspiring uprisings without even trying to? Did I kill more people with that comment than I did in the arena?

President Snow stops and gives me plenty of time to feel miserable. "Medical personnel will be stationed on your train before it leaves tonight. They will visit you in the morning to administer the antidote, if such is required."

"That's fine," I choke out.

"So nice to see you again, Mrs. Mellark, Mr. Mellark. It's very rare that someone engages me in quite as… interesting a conversation as you have tonight, Mrs. Mellark. Please do enjoy the rest of the party."

With that President Snow disappears around a corner, and I'm left to explain all of this to my husband.

…..

"No, no, no, no, no! No! Absolutely not!" We're back on the train, already headed for home, but I feel no relief yet. Peeta is stomping back and forth across our room, both hands clenched in his hair. "We are not _having children_ because President Snow tells us to!"

"Peeta, please just listen to me for a minute-"

"And you!" he continues as if I haven't spoken. "How could you possibly agree to this? The only thing you like less than the Capitol is the idea of having children!"

"Peeta-"

"I can't believe you would go along with this! All we've tried to do for the last six months was have a private life not controlled by the Capitol! And now you bargain away our most private decisions to that odious little snake Snow-"

There's only one thing I can think of to break through Peeta's hysteria and actually get his attention. Rather than let him continue ranting like this, I step directly into his path and stop him mid-stride. I haven't lived with a wrestler this long without picking up a trick or two. I grab him by his biceps and hook my foot around the ankle of his good leg, pulling it out from under him as I give his upper body a hard shove. Left unbalanced with only his prosthetic on the floor, Peeta topples backwards awkwardly, landing on his back with a hard thud with me laying on top of him. He blinks up at me, too stunned for the moment to respond, and I take the opportunity to finally complete a sentence. "Okay? Are you done? Can we actually discuss this now, or do you want to just keep yelling at me?"

Peeta blinks again. "Why?" is all he croaks out.

I roll off of him and sit up next to him. Peeta pushes himself up into a sitting position as I speak. "Because the only way to save our families is to find a way to help President Snow. Believe me I don't like that any more than you do, but what choice do we have? Just sit back and watch them suffer and die?"

"How does a baby help President Snow?" Peeta asks.

"I told him what you said, that we were sparking rebellion just by existing and not because of anything we did or why we did it. I suggested that the way out of this was to take us off television, let us fade away into obscurity. But he thinks that the only way people will forget about us is if we give them an end to the story of the Star-Crossed Lovers. If we're a family with a baby, that'll be the end of the story and people can move on."

"And you're willing to go along with that? To have a baby just because he told you to?"

I reach out and take his hand. He doesn't resist me. "Peeta, if I ask you a question, will you answer it? No side issues, no context, just answer my question honestly?

He nods. "Of course."

Suddenly my voice has grown quite small. "Do you want to have a baby with me?"

Peeta looks like he's fighting with himself over the answer before he finally admits defeat, letting his shoulders slump. His eyes look so sad that I want to cry. "Yes. Of course I want to have a baby with you. I love you. You're my wife. I've always wanted to have a family with you." He pauses, takes a deep breath. "But I know you don't want that. I know you never wanted children. And we're both still sixteen! I can't let President Snow force this on you. I won't. If there's one thing I can do as a husband, I can make sure we don't have children."

"Peeta," I ask, keeping my voice soft, "why did I say I didn't want children?"

"Wha- What do you mean?" he says.

"When I say I don't want children, what's the primary reason I give?" I ask again.

Peeta thinks for a moment. "Because they'd be reaped."

"Exactly. Well, now we don't have to worry about that."

"Do you really think that's true? Do you really think he'll keep his word?"

"I actually do," I say, a bit surprised by the idea. "I'm not saying I trust President Snow at all, I'm sure he'll always be looking for ways to hurt us and manipulate us, but for some reason I don't think he'll break his word. After all, what good are his threats if we don't actually benefit by complying? As long as we're helping him, I don't think he'll go after our families. I think having Prim or Gale or Rye or Barlee alive and under constant threat is more valuable to him than killing them just to hurt us."

Peeta is quiet for a moment. "Can I ask you a question, and you have to answer me honestly?"

"Of course. I'm always honest with you when we're off camera." Peeta quirks his eyebrows and looks quickly at the ceiling, as if to say, _You really think we're off camera?_ I scowl at him. "You realize we live in the Victor's Village? Our house is probably as full of bugs as this train is."

Peeta sighs again. "Fine. Just answer this: Do you really want to have a baby?"

After a moment, I smile at him. Admitting this to Peeta is the first time I've actually admitted it to myself. "Yes. I do." Peeta looks a bit skeptical. "I tried not to let myself think about it because I knew I could never actually go through with it, I could never get over the certainty that they'd be reaped. But for months now I haven't been able to keep the idea out of my head." I smile a bit wider, start playing with his hand a bit. "I picture a blond-haired little boy, stocky and strong like his father, with a full round face because someone keeps giving him cookies and cakes. I see him with a bit of frosting smeared in his hair from some special project that he's trying to keep secret from me because it's supposed to be a surprise. I see you picking him up and swinging him up in the air, I see him screaming and laughing as if there was nothing bad in the world that could touch him, and I see you smiling so wide your face is about to split open. I've been seeing that image in my head ever since our wedding night, no matter how much I told myself it couldn't ever happen."

Peeta seems to take some time to absorb this before responding. "I always picture a girl," he says. "A little girl with black hair and sharp eyes, a girl who's too keenly observant to stay carefree and ignorant of the world for as long as I wish she would. A girl who moves through the house so quietly I don't even realize she's stolen a cookie until I hear it crunch in her mouth." Peeta smiles for a moment. "I've thought about that girl since before we even met properly." Now, his smile quickly disappears. "Then I picture our little girl, Prim's age, only a little older than you were that day I gave you the bread. I see her thrown into the arena with Cato and Clove and Glimmer and Marvel. I see us watching our daughter die on television."

"But, Peeta, that's not going to happen," I say. "That's part of the deal. We're never going to watch our children in the arena. And neither is Prim, and neither are your brothers, and neither are any of the Hawthornes. They'll be safe."

"If we trust President Snow."

"We have to trust him to a degree. Otherwise we may as well start our own uprising." Peeta's eyes go wide in alarm, but I just shrug. We're not in public, and we're pretty far removed from keeping any real secrets from the president.

Peeta stares off into space for a while, then looks back at me. "Okay Katniss, one more honest answer. Do you want to have a baby because you want to have a baby or because you think having a baby will protect everyone?"

I think for a minute before trying to answer. "It's both," I finally say. "I can't separate the two." I'm quiet for another minute, but Peeta doesn't say anything before I continue. "But I think really the biggest thing is that this is our one chance." Peeta looks at me questioningly. "I could never have a child who could be reaped. That was only more true once we were victors, when the possibility became a certainty. But if we make this deal, we can avoid that. We can have children and never have to worry about that. This is our one chance to have a family."

"And you really want that?" Peeta asks.

"I do," I tell him honestly. "I know for a long time I didn't, but like so much else my whole viewpoint has changed in the last six months. I want to have a family with you, Peeta. I want to have your children."

Peeta's eyes widen at this, a look of anguish and ecstasy on his face. "You have no idea how long I've dreamed of hearing you say those exact words," he says, his voice almost a whisper. "But I hate this. I feel like it's admitting defeat. I feel like if we agree to do this then we're admitting that they own us, that we're just a piece in their games."

I consider this for a moment. "I feel the exact opposite," I tell him. "When President Snow told me to have a baby and I said something other than. 'Yes, sir,' that was proof that he _doesn't_ own us, that we're real people who can't just be ordered around like slaves. And he recognizes that too, otherwise he would have just started killing our families instead of trying to strike a bargain. He knows we're too dangerous, that he can't risk us trying to oppose him. We're still playing Games, but he's as trapped in them as we are."

Peeta seems lost in thought. "I get why you want to do this. I can see that it makes sense. Our whole family, safe from the Games. I get that. And all we have to do in return is something we want anyway. I understand all the arguments for why we should take the deal. But I still hate it. We're letting President Snow dictate our lives."

"Peeta, President Snow has always dictated our lives. He's the President of Panem, everything in our lives is dictated by him. He's the reason why there was no food so I had to learn to hunt to support myself. He's the reason there were shoddy conditions that led to the mine explosion that killed my father. He's the reason why my life needed saving that day you gave me the bread." I can see he isn't entirely convinced, so I try another tack. "I mean, come on, Peeta! Because of President Snow, we've spent the last two weeks pretending to be in love! Can you think of anything more ridiculous than _us_ having to _pretend_ to be _in love_?"

This actually gets a genuine laugh out of him. "It wouldn't be so bad if we weren't both so _bad_ at it." Now we're both laughing, the tension slowly seeping from the room with each breath.

Finally I stand up. "Okay, I think we've discussed this enough tonight. We're not saying anything new. Let's just go to bed."

"Wait, don't we have to make a decision on this tonight?" Peeta asks even as he lets me pull him up.

"I think we can get away with waiting a few hours," I say. "It's not like the medics are going anywhere. Look, I'm tired, you're tired, and we're arguing in circles at this point. Come to bed."

I never need to argue with Peeta when I ask him to come to bed.

…..

Neither of us sleeps much that night. My mind is racing with too many thoughts, and I imagine Peeta's is as well. I can't believe the conversation I had with President Snow, I'm afraid for my family, I'm afraid for Peeta, I can't wait to get home, I'm excited about being able to have children, I'm nervous about Peeta's decision, I'm worried about the argument we had before going to bed. A part of me even wishes we could discuss things with Haymitch, although a bigger part of me doesn't want him to know about any of this.

I don't know how many hours later it is when Peeta breaks the silence. "Katniss?"

"Yes, Peeta?"

"I'm sorry I yelled at you before."

"That's all right. I'm sorry I tackled you."

"That's okay. I was actually kind of impressed with your technique."

We're quiet for another long while before Peeta breaks the silence again. "Katniss?"

"Yes, Peeta?"

"Do you think I'd be a good father?"

I lift my head from its usual spot over Peeta's heart to look at his face. He seems incredibly somber. I'm more than a little shocked that he would even ask this question, and it makes me stumble over my words briefly. "Of course. You'd be a wonderful father. The reason I changed my mind about wanting children is because you'd be their father. Why would you even ask that?"

"My mother-"

I don't even let him finish that sentence. "Peeta you're not your mother."

Peeta's voice is so small it's hard to hear. "They say victims often become abusers."

"Peeta, do you really think you would abuse our children?" I can't believe he would even consider this a possibility. "You're the kindest, most loving person I've ever known. If anything I think you'd be completely unable to discipline them, you'd let them get away with murder and give them a cookie for their trouble."

Peeta is quiet for several moments. "I've always wanted a family. With you, since you were the only girl I was interested in since long before I knew where babies come from. But sometimes I have nightmares where I hit my kids. Where they look at me with fear in their eyes. I have nightmares about being my mother."

I find myself giving voice to my next thought before I can decide if that's a good idea or not. "Peeta, you'd be a far better parent to our kids than either of your parents were to you."

Peeta quirks his eyebrow at this. "Either? You think I'd be a better father than my father?"

I sigh a bit, unsure if I want to go into this but unable to avoid it now. "Yes, I do. I know you would never, ever, not in a million years, ever hurt your kids like your mother does. And I know you would never, ever, not in a million years, ever let someone else hurt your kids like your father does."

Peeta considers this for a long time. "That's a harsh assessment."

"I know. You know I always liked your father, before we met when I used to trade with him. But when we went to the bakery the day we were married, I really lost a lot of respect for him. Your brothers, too. You had a father and two older brothers, three grown men who were all supposed to protect you, and instead they stood by impassively waiting for your mother to hit you. And they've been doing that for your whole life. I can't even imagine that – if someone ever tried to hit Prim even once, I'd kill them."

Peeta actually chuckles at this. "I know you would."

"And I know you would too," I tell him. "You would never let any harm come to someone you love. You'd fight to your last breath to protect them, just like you fought Cato in the arena. That's how I know you would never let anyone harm our children."

Peeta is quiet for a moment. "Rye and Barlee were trying to protect themselves. Dad was just trying to keep the peace. I would never blame any of them for my mother hitting me," he says.

"You barely blame your mother for your mother hitting you," I counter. "You're too nice for your own good sometimes."

Peeta doesn't respond to that. I lay my head back down on his chest and hug him tightly. "You're a good person, Peeta. You're the only father I would ever want for my children." Peeta stays silent. We remain like that for another long while, resting but still not sleeping.

I can just see the first hints of sunrise beginning to brighten the horizon when Peeta speaks again. "Katniss?"

"Yes Peeta?"

"Tell me again."

Somehow I know exactly what he means. I pull myself up a bit so our faces are level and give him a soft kiss. I pull back just enough to move my lips, and with our faces still touching I whisper to him, "I want to have your children, Peeta."

Peeta closes his eyes, lets out a deep breath, and opens them again. "Okay."

"Okay?" I don't know why I ask this. I think I just need to hear him say it again.

He obliges me. "Okay. Let's do it."

I think of other couples who decide to have children, of what emotions normally accompany such a decision. Nearly all of them would be wholly inappropriate to our current situation. Instead I just give Peeta a small smile, and kiss him again. "Thank you," I tell him.

"Tell me we're not making a mistake," he asks me.

"No more so than any of our other options." It's the best I can do. Peeta just nods in response. He knows none of our options are good ones.

The sun still hasn't risen far in the sky when there's a knock on the door to our room. Haymitch wouldn't knock; there's no Effie squeal. That leaves one other possibility for who's at the door.

"Medics," Peeta says, finishing my thought. I only nod in reply.

Peeta goes to open the door while I throw on a robe. Two men and a woman enter the room, and it's obvious from looking at them that the woman is the doctor, the other two guards of some kind. Why the president felt the need to send security I don't know. Were we going to get this shot whether we wanted it or not?

"I'm Dr. Marcus," the woman introduces herself. "I understand I'm here to administer antidotes for you five-year birth control shots?"

I just look at Peeta, letting him answer, giving him one more chance to change his mind if he wants. After a moment he nods his head. "Yes, that's correct, Doctor."

Dr. Marcus gives us each a shot, then gives me a second that she says is a fertility enhancer. It's supposed to make it more likely that I'll conceive in the next month. I don't see any reason to refuse the shot, but it wouldn't matter if I did because she gives me the shot without asking my permission. Her treatment orders come from a higher authority than her patient.

The whole process only takes a few minutes. After Dr. Marcus and her guards leave, Peeta and I get dressed and head out to meet Haymitch and Effie for breakfast. They both give us questioning looks when we join them at the table, and unsurprisingly it's Haymitch who speaks.

"You gonna tell me what that was all about?" he asks.

"Why, because we tell each other everything now?" I ask him. He gives me a glare that I'm sure would intimidate someone who hadn't survived the arena, but he has nothing to say. Even if he wanted to he couldn't say it here anyway. So I ignore him and eat my breakfast. I find I'm famished, which makes sense since I haven't eaten a full meal since we left Twelve. Now that our situation is more settled, I fill my plate with slabs of roasted ham and piles of fried potatoes and dig in hungrily.

After several minutes of uncomfortable silence that even Effie doesn't try to break, Peeta turns to me. "Maybe we should tell him. After all, he's going to find out eventually." His mouth quirks into an almost-smile. "It'll be pretty hard to hide after a while." I scowl at him, which just makes him chuckle.

It occurs to me that this isn't all my news to share. I know Peeta would do whatever I want, but it isn't very fair to him to take advantage of that as often as I do. "Do you want us to tell Haymitch?" I ask him.

Peeta gives me a look. He knows how unusual it is for me to even ask that question rather than bowl on ahead with whatever I want to do. "I don't see any reason not to," he says after a moment. "He may as well know the whole situation."

I want to make a snide remark about Haymitch not feeling any need to show us that same consideration, but at the last minute I realize I shouldn't say that here. Instead I huff out a breath and say, "Fine."

I try to go back to eating, but Haymitch interrupts me. "So, spill, Sweetheart."

I give him a glare. After the fight with Peeta last night and having gotten no sleep, I'm incredibly weary of this whole thing, and really don't feel like talking about it with Haymitch right now. Plus I see no reason why Effie has to be a part of this discussion. "Not now," I tell him, cutting my eyes quickly in Effie's direction. Haymitch nods to let me know he understands the gesture. "After breakfast. Stay sober enough for a conversation."

Haymitch just grunts in reply. "She's not kidding," Peeta says. "She knocked me to the ground when we were talking about this last night. And she actually _likes_ me. If she wants you sober, I'd stay sober."

"She only said sober _enough_ ," Haymitch says, adding copious amounts of liquor to his coffee and juice. I roll my eyes and keep eating.

…..

Haymitch is skeptical of our plan. "Not a bad deal, assuming he has any intention of honoring it."

"What else are we supposed to do?" I say. "It's either this or start planning funerals, right?"

Something dark crosses Haymitch's face too quickly for me to identify it, quickly masked with his usual sarcastic expression. "So you're negotiating deals with the president now, huh Sweetheart? What's that like?"

"It's kind of refreshing, actually. It's a lot simpler than trying to act in public. He wants to remain in control of Panem, we want our families safe. We can just lay all that out there and not have to obfuscate everything."

Haymitch grunts in acknowledgement, and takes another swig of his drink. He waves his hand around, gesturing at the room we're in. "You sure it's a good idea to discuss this here?"

"This is a deal we worked out directly with President Snow. You really think it matters if his surveillance picks us up talking about it?" He responds to that with a grunt as well. He does this throughout the conversation, peppering us with questions - mostly me, I was the one who talked to president Snow - and offering nearly none of his opinions on any of it. What's the point of discussing all of this with out "mentor" if he doesn't have any useful advice for us?

It isn't until Peeta and I are on our way out of the room that I remember one detail I haven't shared with Haymitch yet. "Oh, by the way, I got you a housekeeper."

It's his least favorite part of the deal.

…..

After speaking with Haymitch, Peeta and I return to our room to try to catch a nap before we arrive in Twelve and have to put on a show. But we're only asleep for a short time before I'm awakened by Peeta's nightmares for the first time in a long time.

"No, no, stop, no…" he mutters, twisting his body around.

"Peeta?" I ask, still groggy from sleep. I crawl over him and straddle his stomach to try to contain his thrashing motion, and hold his face between my palms. "Peeta, wake up."

He brings his arms up now, making clumsy swipes to knock my hands off of him. "No! Stay away from me! Get off!"

I know he's still trapped in the nightmare, but it still hurts to hear those words coming from my husband's mouth. "Peeta, it's just a dream. It's not real. Please wake up, Peeta. Please."

He's still moving against me, and not knowing what else to try, I kiss him full on the mouth. His lips start moving against mine, and eventually his body calms.

I know he's awake when his eyes open and his head jerks back. "Wha…?"

"You were having a nightmare." I climb off of him and lay back down next to him, but he immediately gets up and sits at the edge of the bed. I move to sit next to him, but when he hunches down and buries both hands in his hair, I instead kneel behind him and hug him from behind, planting small kisses to his shoulder and the back of his head. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"It wasn't about the Games," he says, but then he's quiet. I lay my cheek on his shoulder and hang on to him. He stays silent for a long time before speaking again. "You have to promise me, Katniss."

"Anything."

"Promise me that you'll always protect our child. Even if it's from me."

I had not been expecting that. "Peeta…"

"Promise me," he bites out, tugging at his hair. "I need you to. Promise me you won't let me hurt our child."

"I promise you'll never hurt our child," I try, but Peeta sees right through me.

"Please, Katniss," he begs, close to tears.

"Okay," I say quickly, because I can't stand to hear the despair in his voice. "Okay." I place several more kisses to his shoulder and neck, just to feel more connected to him. "I promise you, if it ever comes to that, I'll never let you hurt our child."

His whole body seems to deflate with the breath he lets out, and his hands finally relax. His whole body relaxes, so much that he begins to slump forward before I tug him back to lie on the bed. I see his tears flowing now, and I curl myself around him and press us together as tightly as I can manage. "Thank you," he chokes out through the tears. "Thank you, Katniss."

I continue to hold him as he cries. I had just assumed that Peeta wanted children, that he would be glad we now have the opportunity. I never imagined the topic would spark this emotional crisis for him. All I can do now is hold him while he cries. And all I can think about is how much I hate the two women who did this to him: His mother, and me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought it was really important in this chapter to show that Katniss isn't the only one with reservations about having children. She makes the assumption in the book, and passes it on to the reader, that because she thinks Peeta would be a good father, he must want to have children. But as someone who grew up in an abusive household, who grew up in District 12 and was not naïve or ignorant of the things that went on there, it would only be natural for him to have his own doubts and reservations. And of course Katniss responds to this with her own self-loathing.
> 
> This deal, with Snow agreeing to immunity for so many people, may be a bit unrealistic. But as is usually the case, Snow is far more devious than Katniss is in a position to conceive of. We'll see in a later chapter exactly what evil idea Snow has in mind that motivated him to offer her this sense of security.
> 
> Next chapter: Returning home, dealing with the repercussions of what they've agreed to do.
> 
> Preview quote from Chapter 14:
> 
>   _"Do you think President Snow will break our agreement now?"_


	14. Homecoming

When our train arrives in District 12, our prep teams are horrified at the state they find us in. They do the best they can to make us presentable for our few minutes of waving and smiling at the train station. Then we're whisked off to the mayor's house to be prepped for dinner tonight. The schedule is so tight that we won't even see our families until the dinner.

I'm reluctant to be separated from Peeta after the breakdown he had after his nightmare, but he gives me a weak smile and tells me he'll be fine. Nevertheless, as soon as my prep team releases me I go looking for him. I don't find him anywhere on the third floor where I was prepped, so I head down to the second. I hear the television droning on in the mayor's office and decide to stick my head in to say hello, maybe he knows where Peeta is being prepped, but the room is empty. On the screen Peeta and I dance in footage from the Capitol party from last night. Peeta looks like he's having the time of his life, while I look distracted as hell. This will be playing on every screen in Panem right now. No wonder nobody in the districts buys into the Star-Crossed Lovers from District 12.

I'm actually somewhat surprised this is still airing, after the change in strategy I discussed with President Snow. I guess he is still pushing the Star-Crossed Lovers storyline in preparation for the news of our baby.

I'm about to turn around and leave when the screen goes black and the sound is replaced by a beeping noise. After a moment the words "UPDATE ON DISTRICT 8" start flashing on screen. This is nothing I'm supposed to see. I should go. Quickly. Before I get caught in here.

Instead I find myself frozen in place.

An announcer I've never seen before appears, a gray-haired woman with a hoarse, authoritative voice. She warns that conditions are worsening and a level 3 alert has been called. Additional forces are being sent into District 8, and all textile production has ceased.

The video cuts away from the woman to show the main square in District 8. I recognize it because we were there only last week. There are still banners with our faces waving from the rooftops. Below them, there's a mob scene. The square's packed with screaming people, their faces hidden with rags and homemade masks. Buildings burn. The crowd throws bricks and stones at the gathered Peacekeepers. Peacekeepers shoot into the crowd, killing at random, but it only slows them down.

I've never seen anything like it, but I can only be witnessing one thing. This is what President Snow calls an uprising. And it's this realization that finally spurs me to flee the room.

…..

Peeta and I are both barely performing during dinner. He's still a shell of himself, and the presence of his mother at dinner isn't helping. All I can think about is what I saw on the mayor's television. We seek each other out for comfort, and I can only hope that's enough of a show for whoever is watching. Who is still watching us, anyway? Certainly not anybody in District 8.

We aren't left alone until they drop us off at home for the night. We obviously can't talk here, but it would look too suspicious if we walked out to the road to town in the middle of the night.

A solution doesn't present itself until Peeta offers me first chance to wash my makeup off. Instead I grab his hand in a death grip. "Shower with me." I don't give him the chance to refuse, dragging him toward the bathroom with me.

We learned early on during the Victory Tour that it's easier to wash all the gunk off when we shower alone, but Peeta voices no objection. I turn on the tap before also starting the shower, then begin fumbling with the fasteners on my dress. I usually need Peeta's help to get out of these Capitol dresses.

Peeta gives me a funny look when I enter the shower with the sink still running, but he follows wordlessly. Once we're under the heavy stream of water, I step close to him and pull his head down to mine so I can place my mouth right by his ear. I even cup my hand over my lips, just in case.

I get straight to the point. "There's an uprising in District 8," I whisper.

Peeta jerks back in surprise. He searches my face for something, maybe to see if this is part of some sick joke. But I'm sure all he can see there is dread. He leans back down and mirrors my earlier gesture, placing his lips by my ear and covering both with his hand. "Did you see something?"

"On the mayor's television, after they prepped me for dinner. There was a crowd, people in the streets. And fires. The Peacekeepers were gunning people down but they were fighting back…" I bite my lip and struggle to continue describing the scene. Instead I say aloud the words that have been eating me up inside. "And it's my fault."

"No!" he says harshly.

"It is," I insist. "If I had just killed myself with those berries-"

"Then we'd both be dead," Peeta cuts me off. "And Prim would have had to bury her sister less than five years after burying her father. And without you she and your mother probably would have starved."

I know he's right about all of that, but I still can't focus on anything but the images of people being shot in the streets while chanting my name. "What are we going to do, Peeta?"

"We're going to have a baby."

Now it's my turn to step back in shock. Peeta's face is deadly serious, which I can't reconcile with the ridiculous statement he just made. He pulls us back together so he can speak into my ear again. "Do you think President Snow will break our agreement now?"

"Well, with an uprising going on, I doubt he's spending much time planning us a shower!"

"I think he might be doing exactly that," Peeta says. "You explained to him that promoting us as lovers was a bad idea, right? That it was only egging people on. Well, this is a pretty spectacular demonstration of how right you were."

I don't know if Peeta's words make sense or if I just hope they do. I said myself that President Snow wouldn't come after us so long as we were helping him. But what about what Peeta said, that we might be doing the wrong thing by helping to stop the uprisings?

I think for a moment of the scene I saw from District 8. The chaos. The madness. The Peacekeepers firing indiscriminately into the crowd. The dead bodies falling to the ground. If that was happening in District 12, every one of those bodies would belong to someone I know. Gale hates the Capitol enough to be part of a riot like that. Would Rory be fighting with him? Prim might even be out there, trying to help the wounded and getting caught in the crossfire. And all to accomplish what? The peacekeepers have all the guns. There are more of us than there are of them, but more of them are only a hovercraft away. We'd never stand a chance.

No, Peeta is right. Our best move is to keep our heads down. Have our baby. Keep ourselves on President Snow's good side, such as it is. Keep our families safe. We do what Seam folks have always done: Survive.

…..

The next day begins with a short victory rally - technically our last Victory Tour appearance - before the Harvest Festival celebration. We always celebrate the Harvest Festival on the final day of the Victory Tour, but usually it means a meal at home or with a few friends if you can afford it. This year it will be a huge party in the town square, with the whole district invited. And since this year's Festival is being paid for by the Capitol as part of the Victory Tour, there'll be enough food for everyone in Twelve to have full bellies tonight. It's enough to put a smile on even my face.

Peeta and I make our way around the Festival. Unlike the party in the Capitol, or the district events filled with dignitaries trucked in for the occasion, most of the people in Twelve leave us alone. We speak with a few old friends, like my old neighbor Leevy and Peeta's friend Delly Cartwright. I even speak briefly with Rillis Cooper, my husband's former fake girlfriend. But for the most part Peeta and I are content to silently observe the festivities. Seeing so many scrawny Seam kids with great heaping plates of food, it almost makes all of this worth it.

While the Capitol is putting on the Festival celebration this year, I'm glad to see that it isn't all Capitol food being served. There are some dishes that are distinctly Capitol, platters of seafood from Four the likes of which even the wealthiest town residents never see, there are also plenty of hearty District 12 dishes. Peeta recognizes many of the breads and pastries as having come from his family's bakery. I'm glad that District 12 workers are being paid to supply the Festival.

As we make our way from table to table, I spy a familiar figure staring skeptically at a display of shrimp. I'm somewhat surprised to see Gale here today, I'd thought he'd be underground by now. This does afford me an opportunity, though. I nudge Peeta to get his attention and nod over to where Gale is standing. "I'm going to go talk to Gale. I need to catch him before Sunday."

Peeta nods in understanding. "Right. Well, wait a minute. I don't know if that's a good idea." I give him a skeptical look; he seems to be fighting back a smile. "How are you going to convince President Snow you're not sleeping with him if you keep doing such intimate things as talk to him in the middle of a crowd of a thousand people?"

I turn sharply and scowl at him. "That's not funny."

He wraps his arms around my waist and pulls us together. "Come on, it's a little funny."

"Very little," I say.

"I think it's hilarious," he says. "People think they know you so well, but they don't know the first thing about you. Makes me feel kind of special, that I get to see the real you."

Peeta does this all the time, just when I'm starting to feel a bit snippy towards him he reminds me how sweet and loving and perfect he is. I lean up and press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. "You're more than just kind of special."

Peeta's smile is breathtaking. "Well I'd have to be, to win the heart of the mighty Katniss Everdeen."

"Mellark," I correct him automatically. Mayor Undersee today actually used my married name when he introduced us at the rally. Whether he did that because President Snow finally gave the okay or just because he knows us, I don't know, and I think it's probably best if I don't ask.

"Now," Peeta says, smiling even wider. "Not at the time."

I roll my eyes at him, stepping back out of his embrace. "I think we've done our required mingling for today. How about after I talk to Gale we get some food and actually sit down to eat?"

"Sounds like a plan," he says. "Good luck."

When I make my way over to the seafood display, Posy has joined Gale in contemplating the shrimp. I know they've probably never seen it before; we don't exactly get a lot of shellfish in the Seam. "I don't know," Gale is saying as I walk up to them.

"It's good," I offer.

Posy turns and gives me a sweet smile. Gale just asks, "Oh?"

"We had some in District 4. Just don't eat the shell. The meat inside is tender and kind of sweet. The sauce might me a bit too spicy for Posy, though."

Gale nods. "Why don't you bring a plate over to Mom?" he suggests to Posy, who eagerly runs up to the serving table to comply.

"I'm surprised to see you here," I say once we're alone.

Gale shrugs. "They closed the mines for the day. Part of the celebration."

"Are you still getting paid?" A day off work in the mines means a day without pay, which usually means a day without eating. With his hunting and my surreptitious assistance, Gale's family won't go hungry due to a lost day of work, but plenty of Seam families will have nothing this Festival celebration to fill the gap left by their lost wages.

Gale's sneer confirms my fears. "What do you think?" It shouldn't surprise me, really. The Capitol never does anything to benefit anyone other than the Capitol.

I move on to the reason I sought him out. "Gale, I need to talk to you and Hazelle. Can I come by later after the kids are asleep?"

Gale eyes me warily. "That'll be pretty late."

"It's important," I say, trying to communicate the same message with my eyes.

"This can't wait for Sunday?" he asks skeptically. Undoubtedly he's thinking the same thing I would be in his place, that we could talk more freely in the woods. The thought sends an almost painful jolt through me, because if things go the way I'm fervently hoping they go then I'll never see the woods again.

"No," I say, and even in my ears my voice sounds strained. "it can't."

Gale stares at me for a long moment, but finally agrees. "What's this about?"

"We can't talk here," I tell him. "I'll be by later, okay?" Gale looks like he wants to ask more questions, so I turn and leave before he can.

I find Peeta by one of the dessert tables, with a small cake on his plate. He has a small smile on his face as he examines the cake, turning it back and forth to see different angles. "Not up to your usual standards?" I ask him.

"No, not really," he says. "Do you recognize it?"

I take a good look at the cake. It's tiny, no more than three or four bites, and it has a three-petal flower design on the top. It takes me a moment to place it, because Peeta's right, the design isn't done very well. "Is that supposed to be a katniss flower?"

"I think it is," he confirms. "My father and brothers would have been busy baking everything for today. Since I wasn't available, my mother was probably the one who iced these."

It takes a moment for that to sink in for me. "So you're saying that your mother had to make a thousand little katniss flowers on all of these cakes? In my honor?"

"Yep," he says with a grin.

I actually laugh at the thought. "I guess that explains why they aren't very good," I say.

"I'm not sure that my mother has ever actually _seen_ a katniss flower," Peeta says.

"After seeing these cakes, neither am I," I say, and we both laugh.

As tempting as the desserts look, I let Peeta drag me away towards the more savory dishes. We gather as much food as we can carry and find an empty table to sit at. My mind is still filled with the image of Peeta's mother icing katniss cakes. "I wonder what she'll say when she finds out I'm pregnant," I wonder.

"Probably nothing good," Peeta says.

I decide I don't want to talk about his mother anymore. "I'm going over to the Hawthornes' later," I say.

Peeta nods slowly, choosing his words carefully in this public setting. "Do you want me to come with you?"

I think for a moment. Gale's going to be difficult enough without having Peeta there in his house. "No, I think it's best if I go alone."

…..

As I'm approaching Gale's later that night, I begin to think that maybe I've made a mistake. Peeta is so good at talking to people, maybe I should have brought him with me to help explain things. I'm not good at saying something. And it's not like Gale and I were on the best of terms even before I left for the Victory Tour.

Hazelle is hospitable as always. She invites me in, offers me tea, asks me some questions about the Tour. Gale sits silent on the other side of the table next to his mother. It's like he doesn't know what to make of me anymore. I realize how easily I could lose Gale completely, to no longer have even the strained relationship we've had these last six months. Especially if he sees me as a tool of the Capitol. So I go straight to the heart of my defense.

"President Snow personally threatened to have you killed."

Hazelle gasps, but Gale just raises his eyebrows slightly. "Anyone else?"

I'd roll my eyes if the subject weren't so serious. "Do you really need a full list? It's basically everyone in both of our families."

"Unless what?" Hazelle cuts in. Trust her to focus on the important things.

"Unless we make it more valuable to him to keep you alive."

"Does President Snow really care about what we do here in Twelve?" Gale asks.

"No," I admit. "He only cares about you because he can use you as a cheap way to threaten me. Prim is too well known since everybody saw the reaping. Killing you costs him nothing. So you'll be the first to go if he wants to punish me."

"Well, it's nice to know where we rank in the scheme of things." His voice is bitter, but he has a glint in his eye that makes me fight a smile. This is the Gale I've missed these last few months. His sense of humor was one of the first things I liked about him, back before we became friends.

"I do have a plan, you know. That's why I needed to talk to you two."

"Yeah, I bet it's a stunner. Let's have it," he says.

"You can't go out to the woods anymore."

All hints of amusement fall from his face. "What?"

It's not until now that I realize just how much I'm asking of him. As important as the woods are to me as a connection to my father, they may be even more valuable to Gale now, now that he spends six days a week underground. Still, I press on. "Snow would rig the reaping to reap someone I care about. It would make a good show for the Capitol and it would be a great way to torture me. I got him to agree not to reap any member of my family, but he had some conditions. One is that no one take out any tesserae. The other is that no one can go outside the fence."

Before Gale can reply, Hazelle cuts in as the voice of reason. "So you're saying unless Gale stops hunting, Rory will be reaped?"

"More than that," I say. "So long as Gale stops hunting, and nobody takes out any tesserae, Rory will _never_ be reaped. And neither will Vick or Posy when their time comes up. And neither will any of their children."

"You got Snow to agree to all of that?" Gale asks skeptically.

"Haymitch and Peeta are the real brains behind most of this," I say.

"I'm sure," he says. "So who else is involved in this?"

"My whole family," I say.

"So Prim," Gale says.

"And Peeta's brothers."

Gale scowls at that. His mother asks, "And all of their kids too?"

"Yeah," I say. "We haven't decided yet how much to tell the others, so you can't say anything to anyone. Actually, that's another thing: This can't become public. If word leaks out about anyone being protected form the reaping, Snow will reap them just to disprove it. So keep this to yourselves, and only tell the kids if you're sure they'll keep it secret." They both look slightly disturbed, but they agree.

"So what does Snow get out of this?" Gale asks.

I open my moth to answer, but then I hold myself back. I can only imagine what reaction Gale will have to the news of my imminent pregnancy, and after everything that's happened these last few days I can't deal with that tonight. "Our cooperation," I say without elaborating. "Don't worry about it. All you have to do is stay inside the district, never take tesserae, and keep all this quiet. Do that and you'll be safe."

"And we won't let President Snow use us to threaten you," Hazelle says.

I smile grimly. "Exactly."

…..

Gale insists on walking me home. He makes a couple of small comments about the parts of the Tour that were shown on television, but smalltalk was never a strength for either of us. He tries a couple of times to get me to reveal more about our deal with President Snow, but I'm characteristically tight-lipped about it. He hadn't liked it when I brought up Hazelle's new job as Haymitch's housekeeper, but Hazelle had understood the need, and I could tell she appreciated that I had gotten her another job rather than offering them charity.

Gale's accompaniment ends at the gate to the Victor's Village, as I suspected it would. "I think you can find your way from here," he says.

I could have found my way just fine from his house, but I don't say that. "You're allowed to come to the Village, you know. Rory's up here all the time visiting Prim. Without hunting, we're not going to see much of each other if you refuse to come within 500 feet of my house."

"Yeah, maybe sometime," Gale says.

I want to roll my eyes at his stubbornness, but suddenly this conversation is making me incredibly sad. "Are things always going to be this awkward between us?"

Gale flinches, and I take some small satisfaction that at least he understands which of us is making things awkward. "I hope not," he says.

I have no idea how to interpret that, so I just say, "Yeah, me too."

The conversation ends there. "Goodnight, Catnip," Gale says, and heads back to his home. I turn and head towards mine.

...

The first weekend after the Victory Tour, the first Sunday I don't spend in the woods with Gale, we get a massive snowstorm that leaves us housebound for three days. Peeta and I take advantage of the time and isolation to throw ourselves headlong into babymaking, but for the first time sex between us doesn't have the all-consuming passion I've come to take for granted. Even though we spend three days in bed together, huddling for warmth when we aren't otherwise engaged, it feels like we're drifting further apart.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out what's wrong. For the first time, we're not having sex for each other. We're trying to make a baby for President Snow. I know we'll both love our child, and I know we both love each other, but somehow that doesn't help heal the distance I can feel growing between us. At times like this I can't help but wonder if we did rush into things too quickly. Of course, it's not like circumstances left us with a lot of choice, and I couldn't imagine my life without Peeta in it every day. But this is the first time in my life I've been in a romantic relationship, and I don't know how to deal with problems like this when they come up. And it seems, neither does Peeta.

A week later we get an unexpected shipment from the Capitol: An entire box of Capitol-produced pregnancy tests. Their constant presence in our bedroom does nothing to help us grow back together.

It's another three weeks after that when one of the tests comes up positive. I'm pregnant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of a short chapter, but I pretty much had to end it there. I had a lot of fun with this one, a lot of interesting twists on canon scenes. I entertained myself, at least. 
> 
> Next chapter: Time to tell the grandparents! And Uncle Gale!
> 
> Preview quote from Chapter 15:
> 
> _“I need you."_


	15. Pregnant

Peeta is helping out at the bakery the day I get a positive test. He's been working there a lot since we got back. The first thing I do is take another test, just to make sure, as if these Capitol tests might be faulty or unreliable. But that one is positive too.

Three more positive tests later the reality slowly sinks in that I'm pregnant, that I have a child growing inside of me, that in nine months I'm going to have a baby, that I'll be a mother, that in some way I already am a mother… I thought I was ready for this, I thought I knew what I was signing up for when we decided to have a baby, but now I find myself shocked at the reality of what we've done. I sink down to the floor in the bathroom, trying to hide myself in the corner between the wall and the shower. I pull my legs up against my chest and bury my head behind my knees, in the hopes that if I make myself small enough then maybe the world won't notice me here and I'll be left alone.

That's how Peeta finds me, what must be hours later when he returns from the bakery. I don't hear him come in, but I hear him softly repeating my name. "Katniss? Katniss, can you hear me? Katniss, look at me. I'm right here, Katniss. Katniss? Can you look at me, Katniss?"

Slowly I turn my head in his direction. I can see the deep worry in his eyes, and I feel guilty because I know I put it there. He does his best to plaster a smile on his face, though. "Lets get you into bed, okay?" I don't make any response, but Peeta goes ahead and lifts me off the ground and carries me back into the bedroom. It's not until now, when I'm finally moved from my position curled up on the floor, that I feel how stiff and sore my entire body is. When Peeta lays me down in bed, I groan out loud at how much it hurts to straighten out like that.

Peeta tucks me in and begins to back away, but I catch his hand and hold him there. I want to tell him to climb in with me, to hold me tightly and never let go, but all I manage to say is "Stay…" Lucky for me, as usual Peeta understands what I'm trying to say even though I haven't actually managed to say it. He slips under the covers and slides his arms around me. I roll toward him and lay my cheek against his chest, smelling the flour embedded in the fibers of his shirt. I focus on the rhythmic movement of his steady breathing and use it to help calm my own. "I'm…" I begin to say, but I falter after that.

"I know," Peeta says. "I saw the tests." Oh. What must he be thinking right now, coming home to find his wife almost catatonic and finding out about our baby from the positive tests littering the floor?

My whole chest seizes up at that thought. Our baby. _Our baby._ It's real now, not just an idea, not just a plan. Somewhere inside of me are the beginnings of a whole new person. I'm both elated and terrified by the idea. But when I think of the life now growing inside of me, now that I can see past the terror of the idea for a moment, I feel an overwhelming responsibility. I'm someone's _mother_. I think of my own mother, of how she lost herself in grief and turned in on herself after my father died, how I've always blamed her for abandoning us and how I've never really forgiven her for that. What did I do today, if not the exact same thing? I let my fear take over, and it paralyzed me. If I'm going to do this, if I'm going to have a child, if I'm going to be a _mother_ , then I have to do better. I have to be better. And there's only one thing that makes me better.

"I need you," I choke out, my throat raw even though I haven't spoken all day. "I can't do this without you."

"I should have been here. I'm sorry." At first I think he's just talking about today, but then he continues speaking. "I let everything get to me. I let _him_ get to me. I won't do it again."

"You can't bottle everything up. You can't pull away from me. You have to let me help you, just like you help me." I understand Peeta's tendency to handle everything on his own, I do the same thing myself, but I can't handle him pulling away from me right now.

"I _need_ you," I repeat, because I don't know what else to say.

"You have me. Always," he promises, tightening his arms around me.

…..

Peeta doesn't go to the bakery for the next few days, and we spend the time reconnecting with each other. I keep noticing little things that had been missing from our interactions since we started trying for the baby in earnest, and then being angry at myself for not noticing that they were missing in the first place. When did he stop being distracted from his baking because he couldn't stop from glancing up at me? Probably the same time I stopped sitting up on the countertop next to him while he bakes.

It's not until the third day that we actually sit down and talk through everything. How we had let things get so bad, so quickly; how we had failed each other, both of us, and how we were going to make sure we never did that again. There's no lonelier feeling than missing someone who's still there, and two people with the mothers Peeta and I have shouldn't have needed a reminder of that before we fixed things between us. But we don't live in the world of should-have-been.

This whole thing is a bit of a splash of cold water for Peeta and me. We've never had to work at our relationship. Ever since we got home from the Games we've been coasting on the emotional high from falling in love for the first time, and from simply surviving and adjusting to our new life as Victors. Well, the Victory Tour and President Snow have effectively put an end to that. Peeta and I don't have the best examples of healthy relationships to work from, his mother is his mother and I've spent the last five years shying away from memories of my father because they were too painful. But now I feel like we've weathered the first storm. We may be fumbling amateurs but we found our way back together when we needed to.

That night, for the first time since we got home from the Tour, everything we do together is an expression of love.

…..

The next morning, while Peeta is rolling out the dough for cheese buns and I'm sitting up on the counter playing with his hair and stealing bits of cheese, my mind drifts again to that horrible moment on the way home from the Hunger Games, when I almost let Peeta walk away from me thinking I didn't love him. How intolerable would this situation have been if that had happened? Surely President Snow would have forced us to marry anyway even if we hadn't done it for ourselves, even if we didn't want it for ourselves. Would we still be having this baby, or would the public spectacle of a wedding have been enough to appease him? Maybe for now, but surely he would have demanded children from the Star-Crossed Lovers eventually.

If we weren't a united front, if we didn't share everything with each other, would we even have come up with a new plan after the Tour was a huge failure? Would Snow approach us separately and try to use us against each other? How would we cope with all of this if we were still strangers with nothing more in common than a single traumatic experience? What on Earth would that do to us, when even the bond we now share was strained by the weight of everything we're going through?

Intolerable. It would be completely and utterly intolerable. I don't even want to think about it, because what little I can imagine is too horrible to consider.

"Hey." I zone back in to the world around me at the sound of Peeta speaking. I find him eyeing me with concern as he cleans dough off his hands with a towel. "What are you thinking about?"

"Just… everything," I say. Peeta looks skeptical, he thinks I'm hiding something with my vague answer, but it's the truth. "That and how lucky I am to have you with me."

…..

The next week, I decide it's time to talk to my mother. Regardless of how I feel about her performance as a parent, I'm not going to go through my pregnancy without seeing a healer. I make Peeta go to the bakery and wait until after Prim has left for school to head over.

I bring the half-full box of pregnancy tests over with me. When my mother opens the door to let me in, I go straight into the kitchen and put the box on the table. "I figured you would get more use out of these than I can."

Mom seems bemused by my behavior. But then she comes over to the table, and examines the box's contents. I can see the blood drain from her face as she realizes what I've brought her, and why I have them. She looks up at me, her eyes filled with confusion and sorrow. "How long?"

I expected this, but it still strikes me like a physical blow when I hear in her voice just how disappointed she is in me. "Just over a week since I got a positive test," I tell her, struggling to maintain my composure under the weight of her gaze.

She shakes her head. "I thought you got shots."

"Apparently they can be reversed."

She pauses, as if unsure what to say, before her mouth sets in a hard line. "You're sixteen. Do you really think this is a good idea?"

I don't like the accusation in her tone, and it puts me on the defensive. "It was the best option we had available to us."

"Katniss…" she says, her voice softening as her shoulders slump slightly. I didn't mean to give this much away to her, but her next question shows she's figured out the true meaning of my words. "Was this your idea?"

"…Partly." It's the best answer I can give her. The word hangs heavily between us in the silence that follows. My mother looks profoundly sad, as if she feels guilty for the situation I'm in. But even I know this isn't her fault. Prim never took out any tesserae, her name was only in the bowl once. My mother's failures, however I feel about them, had nothing to do with Prim being reaped. And everything that's happened since has been a direct result of that event.

I pull myself together, and force my voice to remain steady. "So is there anything I should know?"

My mother blinks, and I can almost hear her shifting into healer mode. "For one, you need to eat better," she says bluntly. "I don't know what they're feeding you at all these dinners they show on television, but you look like you've actually lost weight on the Victory Tour. Let that husband of yours stuff you full of baked goods. The baby can't feed off of you if you starve yourself."

She's right, I've been too distracted to eat very much since we saw President Snow before the Tour. I've spent my life taking care of Prim, and Mom; taking care of myself was always last on my list of priorities. But now I have to think about my baby, my child. I've seen the scrawny, tiny infants delivered by malnourished Seam women, starving babies born of starving mothers, and whether either one of them survives the rigors of childbirth is often a crapshoot. Doing that to my child, when I live surrounded by abundance in the Victor's Village, would be an unthinkable crime.

"Anything else?" I ask.

"I'll know more after I examine you," she says.

I've never liked being examined by my mother. I find it invasive, and embarrassing, and for years it served as a painful reminder that the only people she could rouse herself to care for were her patients, not her daughters. But living with a healer, I've seen too much of what can go wrong with a pregnancy. And I won't go to some stranger in town for this kind of care. I suppose, with how important this baby is to the president, I could probably make a phone call and go see an actual doctor in the Capitol. If I wanted all of my exams to be shown on television.

"I'd say you're about a month along, at most," she says once she's done. "A November baby."

"Just like Prim." For one brief moment the thought brings a smile to my face, but then I realize that I'm going to have to tell Prim about the baby. After seeing my mother's disappointment in me, I'm not sure I can bear Prim's reaction. And I can't even offer her an explanation, because there's no way I'm letting her know about everything going on with the President.

"Have you had any morning sickness yet?" my mother asks. Was that prompted by my change in expression, or is that just the next part of the exam?

I shake my head. "Well, you should expect that in another couple of weeks," she says.

"Is it bad?" I've always hated puking, whenever I caught a stomach bug. It seems like an awful waste of food.

"It depends," she says. "With you I could hardly keep anything down for months. With Prim it wasn't nearly that bad." I roll my eyes. Of course Prim was gentler than I was, even when we were just clumps of cells.

She continues with her questions, doling out advice along the way.

"How are you and Peeta handling this?" she asks at one point.

I think I actually jerk back in surprise at the question. How would she know? But looking at her, it seems like she doesn't. And I'm not bringing it up with her. "Fine," I say quickly. She looks skeptical. "Well, I did kind of panic when I got the positive test."

She actually laughs lightly at this. "Every mother has moments like that. I think it's a terror as old as life itself. The first time I felt you kicking I burst into tears. Massive, wracking sobs. Scared your father silly, he thought something was seriously wrong."

"How long does it usually last?" I ask. While I haven't spent hours curled up on the floor of the bathroom since that one time, the feeling of fear - fear that I'll somehow fail my child, fear that I won't be able to protect them, fear that I'll disappoint them - that fear hasn't ever really gone away.

"Well…" my mother begins. "In a way it lasted until you were born. Actually holding you in my arms brought a kind of joy I had never imagined, and it calmed me down a lot. But to a certain extent that feeling doesn't ever go away. You always worry about your child. Their safety is never far from your mind."

My first inclination is to dismiss this idea, because I don't think I can handle being this worried _all the time_. Anyway, she doesn't know what she's talking about, because nothing in her life in District 12 would prepare her to understand the situation I'm now facing with the Capitol and President Snow. It sure as hell hasn't prepared me.

The only person I'm used to worrying about all the time is Prim, and I'm worried about her having something to eat, not about her being used as a pawn by the Capitol and eventually being killed in the Hunger Games because of who her parents are. But then, maybe my mother is right. Maybe you just worry about different things with different people. And it's not like I'm _not_ worried about the Capitol using Prim as a tool to punish me with.

"Mom, I need to talk to you about something. Something serious."

"What we've been talking about isn't serious?" she asks, but her small smile quickly falls when she sees the look on my face.

I remain silent for several moments, unsure how to explain everything. How much should I tell her? How much _can_ I tell her? "It's about Prim," I finally say. "You need to know certain things, in case…" I have to stop and swallow the lump in my throat. "In case I'm not here. You need to know how to protect her."

My mother looks very worried now. "Katniss, what are you saying?"

"Prim can't ever go out to the woods," I blurt out. "Not ever. And she can't ever take any tesserae."

My mother just looks confused. "You know Prim has never been a hunter like you and your father. And why would she take out tesserae when we live in the Victor's Village?"

"Yes but if _something happens_ ," I say, putting as much emphasis into the words as I can without just saying _in case Peeta and I are brought to the Capitol and hung up by our toenails until we starve to death_. In my effort to keep my emotions under control, my voice sounds firm and harsh. "If I'm not here, if you don't live in the Victor's Village anymore, if the stipend and the parcels go away. Prim can't go out to the woods, not even to look for herbs or medicines, not even to gather flowers. She can never set foot outside the fence. And if it comes down to it she'd be better off slitting her own throat than taking a single tesserae ration."

"Katniss!" She looks horrified, as she probably should be, but in my mind I can't help but scoff. She's horrified and she doesn't even know the whole story. She doesn't even know the danger I've put everybody in, what Peeta and I have had to risk to try to save them.

And I can't let any of those efforts go to waste because of my mother's horror, so I cut off her reply before she can gather herself to continue. "Never! Not one step outside the fence, not one single ounce of tesserae grain. No matter what happens to me, no matter what happens to Peeta, you have to protect Prim. You may be the only one left to do it. Promise me you'll protect her!"

I know I probably sound unhinged, and my mother looks afraid of me right now, but if I try to reign myself in the terror will be overwhelming and I'll probably have another panicked breakdown, so I let myself fly off the handle.

"Katniss, you need to calm down, this kind of stress isn't good for the baby…"

I bark out a laugh at that. Stress? She's going to teach me how to handle stress? This woman who suffered one tragedy and shut herself down for _years?_ This woman who watched her children starving and did _nothing?_ She's going to try to tell me how to handle stress? "Promise me," I repeat. "Tell me you understand how to keep her safe. Tell me you understand how important this is."

"I understand, Katniss," she says, in what I assume is meant to be a soothing voice. "But won't you tell me what this is really all about?"

"I can't," I choke out. I told Gale and Hazelle some of this, but I'm honestly not sure how much more my mother can handle. And this Capitol-built house in the Victor's Village is hardly the place to discuss it.

I stand quickly, because if I stay here any longer I'm going to do something stupid like cry in front of my mother. I hesitate for just a moment trying to say goodbye to her, but when nothing comes out of my mouth I turn and flee.

"I want you back here next week for another checkup," she calls after me as I race through the entryway on my way out of the house. I don't take the time to acknowledge her, flying out the door and sprinting down the street back to my house. It's not until I've burst through the door and slammed it shut behind me that I let my tears escape. I fall back against the door, sucking in deep breaths and trying to calm myself down.

And then suddenly Peeta is in front of me, looking concerned and tentatively reaching toward me. He should be at the bakery for many more hours, but somehow instead he's here holding my hand and wiping tears off of my cheeks, and I don't take time to question it I just push myself off the door and throw myself into his arms.

And that's where I finally let myself break down.

…..

"I was worried about you," Peeta says later. Much later, after I've cried myself out and after Peeta has shed his shirt that I've soaked in tears and snot, when we're laying together on the couch he must have carried me to while I was inconsolate. Peeta is explaining that he only pretended to go along with my insistence that he go to the bakery for the day once he realized he wouldn't be able to argue me out of it. Instead he only walked around the other end of the Victor's Village for about half an hour before returning home. "After how rattled you were when you got that positive test, I just wanted to be here when you got home."

"I should have brought you with me," I say. "I tried to explain to her how to keep Prim safe from President Snow. In case, you know, in case…"

"In case we're not here to protect her anymore," Peeta says.

I nod against his chest. It shouldn't surprise me that he's had the same dark thoughts I have. "I was trying to tell her, but I couldn't tell her _why_ , so I just sounded crazy, giving her these random limitations on what Prim can do and insisting on them like they were life and death. You would have been able to talk to her without sounding like a crazy person."

"I'll go next time," he says. "I'll go every time."

I feel a brief flash of guilt. I know Peeta would have come with me today if I had let him. "It's just… embarrassing," I slowly admit. "It's already weird that my mother is examining me, it'd be even weirder with someone there to watch."

"Why is it embarrassing?" he asks. I can't see his face right now, with my eyes closed and my ear pressed against his bare chest, but I can practically hear his smile. "It's not like I'll see anything I haven't seen before."

"Shut up," I say, but there's a smile on my face. "Thinking about _that_ with my mother in the room will make things far less weird, I'm sure."

"Maybe you just need a distraction so you don't notice how weird and embarrassing things are," Peeta says. "I could tell a funny story. Maybe do a little dance."

"Okay, fine, you can come next time," I say around my laugh. "But that had better be an impressive dance."

"Well, in that case, I'd better start practicing," he says. He starts to move me off of him so he can slip out from under me, but I stop him.

"No, stay here a while longer," I say, pushing his arms back down and moving my head back to its place just over his heart.

"Okay, I'll stay here with you for a while longer," he says. I smile against him. Sometimes I'm just so glad to have him with me. I can't imagine what my life would be without him.

We stay like that for a long time, not talking anymore, just sharing each other's presence. Long enough that I can tell from the shifting sunlight shining through the window that it's past noon. But I still have no inclination to move anywhere, and Peeta makes no move to do so either.

"Mom says the baby is due in November," I say eventually. It's not exactly a mystery when we conceived, but I might as well share with him the one piece of concrete information my mother gave me this morning.

"That's good," Peeta says. "November's a good time for a birthday. Nice cool weather. All the brightly colored leaves. Maybe some snow to play in." Not to mention it's several months separated from both the Hunger Games and the Victory Tour, though neither of us voices that thought.

Instead, I ask, "Any chance there would be hot chocolate waiting for us after we're done playing in this snow?"

"I'm sure something could be arranged, for my two favorite girls," he says.

"You really think it'll be a girl?" I ask. The question has been on my mind lately. I know some women think there are ways to tell, I've overheard Greasy Sae predicting the sex of pregnant women's babies at the Hob, but when I asked my mother today she said that there was no way to truly know, not unless the Capitol has some sort of magical machine that can do it.

"I really have no idea, but I won't call our baby _it_ , so I have to pick one or the other," Peeta says. "And whenever I think about our child, I always picture a little girl. I want her to be just like you."

"What, moody and incapable of expressing herself? No, I want a little boy who's kind, and good, just like you."

"Well, that'll be unique, a Mellark boy being wanted." He says it like it's a joke, but I know the years of hurt and bitterness that goes into statements like that, however rare it is for Peeta to actually give them voice. I lift my head and prop my chin on my hands so I can look up at his face.

"You know we're both going to love the crap out of this kid no matter what it winds up being, right? Any child of Peeta Mellark is going to be absolutely smothered in love and affection."

That gets a genuine smile onto his face. "Any child of Katniss Everdeen is going to be loved more fiercely than anyone else in Panem."

"What about a child of Katniss Mellark?" I ask.

"Even more so."

I lay my head back down, a smile on my lips. A few hours ago I barely made it in the front door, on the verge of another breakdown like the one I had when I found out I was pregnant. And now here I am, happy and content, laying in my husband's arms, my mind filled with images of Peeta and his son building a snowman together and then coming inside for birthday cake and hot chocolate.

"I love you," I say out loud, because I don't know how else to express what I'm feeling.

Peeta lets out a deep sigh of contentment. "I love you, Katniss."

We stay there until dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of people seemed to be nervous after the end of the last chapter. Sorry! It literally never occurred to me that people would even see it like that. The pregnancy reveal was just too perfect a place to end the chapter. Every time I saw a review like that, I just wanted to pull everyone aside and tell them, this isn't that kind of story. There are tons of fics that have Everlark relationship angst, but like I said in the author's note on chapter 1, this isn't one of them. Hopefully the ending of this chapter is a bit more reassuring.
> 
> I'm guessing care for pregnant women in District 12 is pretty primitive. Considering they barely have electricity and most of the medicines are herbs and things Katniss picks in the woods, they're not going to have blood tests and ultrasound machines. I'm not sure you could even do an exam of a pregnant woman this early on without an ultrasound, but hey, artistic license.
> 
> Also, before anyone calls me out on it, I know I got Prim's birthday completely wrong. I hadn't remembered it being mentioned in the books, but it was said to be in late May in a section I just reread the other day. Oops. I thought about editing that bit out of this chapter, but I already mentioned Prim's birthday being in the fall in Chapter 10, so I guess I'll just stick with my mistake for the rest of this story. I'm consistent, if not accurate.
> 
> BTW, before I wrote it, these were my notes for the scene between Katniss and her mother about Prim: "Stay in school, kids. Don't do tesserae." Made myself laugh.
> 
> Next chapter: Secrets are revealed! Spoiler: The secret is the toastbaby. And someone who finds out will react very, very badly.
> 
> Preview quote from Chapter 16:
> 
> _"You deserve so much better."_


	16. Adjusting

Prim finding out about the baby isn't nearly as bad as I was afraid of. My mother must tell her, because she knows by the time the two of them come over for dinner the next night. She's nothing but excited for me, and the closest thing to a reprimand she has is when she laments that she didn't get to be part of my first examination. She practically does another one anyway, feeling around my stomach and asking a million questions. I indulge her to a point, but I draw the line when she tries to hike up my shirt.

At one point after dinner, Peeta brings Prim into the kitchen with him, ostensibly to help him with dessert, but I know Peeta doesn't need any help with dessert. When she comes back out five minutes later, she comes straight over to me and curls herself up in my lap, clutching her arms around me and laying her head on my shoulder. I don't know exactly what Peeta said to her, but it must have been about our trouble with the Capitol.

I find myself genuinely angry at Peeta. There was no reason why she needed to know any of the dirty details of all this, and it's obviously scared her to death. He had no right to do that. And once Mom and Prim have left, I tell him so.

Peeta is surprised by my sudden change in mood, but he recovers quickly. He takes a seat on one of the couches in the living room, and I seat myself on the other one, directly across from him with the low table separating us. "You said you didn't think you'd gotten through to your mother. You asked me to help explain things."

"Help explain things _to Mom_ ," I say. "I'm trying to protect Prim, not scare her to death."

Peeta shakes his head. "You need to decide what you're protecting her from, Katniss. Are you protecting her life or her innocence? Do you want her alive and scared or oblivious and dead?"

I'm left silent for a moment; I'm not used to Peeta speaking this bluntly. This is not happy sunshine Peeta who always manages to find the good in things, this is a bit of the Peeta who survived living with his mother for sixteen years. Peeta who can brush everything else aside and zero in on what's most important. "You think I'm wrong to protect her innocence?"

"I think maybe you're not giving her enough credit," he says gently. "She's been through a lot, just like you. Lost her father. Watched her sister in the Games. She's a survivor, just as much as you are."

"She cried when I tried to take her hunting," I say.

"And you almost threw up at a stab wound that wouldn't have phased her for a second," Peeta counters. And he's right, Prim doesn't bat an eye at the kind of gore that sends me running for the hills. Maybe just because I inflict wounds and she heals them doesn't make her more innocent, any more than Peeta is.

"She's my little sister," I say.

"I know," Peeta says. "But she's thirteen now. She doesn't have the same burdens you did when you were thirteen, but like I said, she's been through plenty. She can handle knowing a little bit of the truth. And I think she deserves to know enough to protect herself."

"That's not for you to decide," I snap out bitterly. That was my original objection, wasn't it? Before Peeta clouded the issue with his clever words.

"And who does decide if she deserves the chance to protect herself?" he asks. I just scowl at him. Peeta's shoulders sag with a sigh. "Look, is there anyone in this world whose loss would devastate you like Prim's?"

I immediately think of Peeta himself, but I don't give voice to the thought. Peeta nods at my silence. "Exactly. So I'm sorry if it upsets you, but you're not going to convince me to not do everything I can to protect her."

When I don't say anything in reply, Peeta stands to leave the room, but he pauses behind me. I can almost feel him hesitate before his hand gently lands on my shoulder. "Do you remember when we first came home from the Games, how you chafed when your mother tried to reassert control over you? Do you remember how you complained that you weren't eleven anymore and she needed to stop treating you that way?"

"Yeah," I say, unsure where he's going with this.

"Well, Prim's not seven anymore either. Even if you don't trust me to help protect her, you should think about trusting her." With that he leaves me alone with my thoughts.

…..

"I do trust you," I say later, when we're wrapped up in bed together. "I trust you. You have to know that."

Peeta is quiet for a long moment. Finally he says, "I think deep down you don't really trust anybody."

…..

I mull that one over for a while. Peeta lets me stew, knowing that it sometimes takes me a while to figure out what to say and that I'll respond in my own time.

We begin to develop a new routine, now that we can't go out to the woods anymore. Even without hunting, staying inside all the time just isn't an option for me. We try taking walks around the district to replace our walks through the woods, but there isn't much to see inside the fence, and it feels silly walking just for the sake of walking, without a purpose for the trip or a destination in mind. We still make plenty of purchases at the Hob and at the shops in town to spread our money around, but that isn't anything to fill our days. We try having a picnic out in the Meadow like we used to out in the woods, but it only takes one trip for us to notice the hovering Peacekeepers and decide that it's better that we not spend so much time right next to the district fence.

We wind up settling on a tree near the edge of the Victor's Village. It's a little bit away from the houses, but still out of sight from town. There's a bit of grass right under the tree that's the perfect spot to sit and rest, or set out lunch. When I get sick of aimlessly wandering our dismal district but don't want to go back inside yet, that's where we go to spend time in some semblance of the outdoors we're now cut off from.

It isn't until Peeta points it out to me that I realize that this is the very same tree we spent time under the day we were married, after we went to see his mother and I wound up decking her. I still have mixed emotions about that, but more than anything it makes me think about what will happen when we tell her about our baby, which we'll probably have to do sooner rather than later.

Haymitch has been in touch Effie and our other handlers in the Capitol. Soon enough a television crew will be coming out to Twelve to film an interview with Peeta and me about the baby. "As soon as you're showing enough for the cameras. Or maybe sooner, if they can rig up something that'll look convincing."

I had to roll my eyes at that. With everything they can do with their Capitol camera tricks, why bother with me being pregnant at all?

…..

_I think deep down you don't really trust anybody._ It sounds like an accusation. I know Peeta doesn't mean it that way, but the more I think about it the more I can't really react to it any other way.

Why should I trust anybody? Who am I supposed to trust, exactly? My depressed mother, who abandoned her children to starve? My drunken mentor, who would trade his own life for a drink? I trusted my father, but that didn't do me much good once he was dead. I trust Prim, but I'm supposed to protect her, not the other way around. I trust Peeta, but Prim is my responsibility, not his.

"I don't mean it in a bad way," Peeta says when I bring it up again, one day under the tree at the edge of the Victor's Village. We're both bundled up in Capitol winter gear to protect ourselves from a late-winter snowfall, but I'm greedy for the outdoors and unwilling to return home just yet. We sit side by side, pressed up against each other but separated by the thick winter coats we wear. "You've been carrying so many burdens on your own for so long. I just think that part of you has a hard time accepting that you aren't in this by yourself anymore." Well, sure, because if I had ever allowed myself to believe that before I would have been wrong and my whole family would have died for my mistake.

But then I stop myself, because there was one night when I was decidedly not all alone, and it saved my life. And even in the days after that - when, yes, I fed my family, but I did so using my mother's family plant book and the skills my father spent years teaching me. The vendors at the Hob would probably have accepted anyone who showed up with fresh meat, but what about the merchants in town who opened their back doors to my illegal game? Would they have placed their fate into the hands of any scrawny twelve-year-old with meat to sell? Or did they trust me to be discreet because my father had earned that trust?

"How do you trust people so easily?" That's the real question. Peeta didn't have a lot of trustworthy people in his life growing up either, yet somehow he still became this kind, sweet man who always sees the best in people. That's what makes no sense. My distrust makes perfect sense by comparison.

"I don't know that I trust people that easily," he says.

I scoff at that. "You picked Haymitch up out of a pool of his own vomit and still expected him to mentor us."

"And it worked, didn't it?" Well, he does have a point there. "I don't expect people to be more than they are," he says.

"You expected Haymitch to be more than a drunk."

"But I never expected him to _not_ be a drunk," he says. "I don't trust people to never let me down, that'd just be setting myself up for disappointment. But people tend to be consistent. If you know what they've done in the past, it's pretty easy to predict what they'll do in the future. So I guess I just trust people to be themselves."

I shake my head. "What does that even mean?"

"It means I expect people to act like they've always acted, and I'm not let down when they do," he explains. "Like, I trust my father to be who he is, and part of that is knowing that he's never going to stand up to my mother. I trust my mother to be who she is, so I'm not surprised or disappointed when she does the same things she's always done."

"That's not something you should have to get used to," I say.

Peeta dodges the topic. "I trust Haymitch's knowledge of the Games, but I don't expect him to quit drinking. I trust Effie to know what a Capitol audience expects from me, but I don't expect her to have an epiphany and suddenly start feeling guilty for the mass murder she's a part of. I trust Rye's quick wits, but I don't expect him to start taking everything seriously. I trust Barlee's intelligence, but I don't expect him to stop kowtowing to my mother."

Peeta is such a keen judge of people, no wonder he's able to do that. "And you think that's what I do?" I ask him. "I expect too much from people and so they let me down?"

"No, not at all," he says with a shake of his head. "I don't think you expect anything from anyone, because that way they can't let you down. I think it's been so long since you had someone you could really trust that you're out of the habit."

"I trust you," I insist.

"You didn't trust me to tell Prim what she needed to know."

I scowl. "You told her too much."

"You only think that because you don't trust Prim to help take care of herself."

"I…" I want to snap back at him, but I find myself stopped by the unexpected lump in my throat. I'm supposed to protect Prim, not lay that burden on her.

When I remain silent, Peeta asks, "What was the first thing we promised each other, on that train ride home?"

That's easy. "No more lies."

"Because you don't lie to someone you love," he says. "You don't leave people you love in the dark. You trust them with the truth."

"She's my responsibility," I choke out.

"You have to let her take some responsibility for herself," Peeta says.

"But I'm the one who put her in danger."

"No you're not," Peeta says. I open my mouth to contradict him, but he cuts me off. "Snow put her in danger. All you've done is try to protect her. But you don't have to do it alone anymore. And you don't have to protect her from the real world like you did years ago."

I take a moment to stop and really consider Peeta's words. They almost make me laugh when I realize what he's really saying. My life is so messed up. "How many sixteen-year-olds have to be given the 'let your kids grow up' speech?"

Peeta actually does laugh a little. "I don't know. How many sixteen-year-olds have raised someone as smart and confident and ready to grow up as Prim is?"

I scoff a little. "That was all her doing."

"Now I don't believe that for a second," Peeta says. He drapes his arm over my shoulders, and it's a bit awkward with our bulky winter coats but I allow it. "Talk about a tough act to follow. If our kid doesn't wind up as amazing as Prim, it'll be entirely my fault."

He actually gets me to smile a little. "Not much chance of that. I can't imagine your child being anything but amazing."

"Our child," Peeta corrects me. Then he stops himself, shaking his head and smiling as if it's the first time he's realizing it. "We're having a baby, Katniss."

I wish I could be as happy as he is about this. But I'm still so afraid.

…..

At my next exam, Prim is her usual self, mixing enthusiasm and excitement about the baby with serious dedication to performing her parts of the exam in the way that only she can. The deep emotional scarring I was afraid of last week seems so silly a worry now.

I let Peeta come with me this time, but make him leave the room when the actual exam is going to begin.

"Are you sure?" he asks me. At my confirmation, he takes a step back, raises his arms above his head, and begins spinning as he works his way toward the next room.

Prim starts giggling at his antics. Mom just looks confused. "Peeta, what on earth are you doing?" I ask.

"I promised you a dance!" he calls out as he twirls through the doorway.

We can't start the exam until I can stop laughing.

…..

Left with too many hours to fill, I enroll Peeta in a project to update my family's plant book. The book was invaluable to me in the early days after my father died, but now I know many plants that aren't recorded in the book. Some my father taught me but never recorded before he died. Some I discovered on my own. Some I learned from Gale. Even some that I learned in the Training Center before the Games. Peeta sketches each one on scrap paper, based on my descriptions and, when possible, on his own observations from the few months he came out to the woods with me. Once his sketch meets my approval he copies it into the book, and I add everything I know about each one in my most careful handwriting. It's quiet, absorbing work that helps take my mind off of our problems. But it's slow going, because the look of concentration Peeta gets while he's sketching only exacerbates the effects that pregnancy hormones are having on my libido. Especially when his tongue begins to creep out from between his lips.

I also find myself spending more time with my friend Madge Undersee. We've only seen each other occasionally since I stopped attending school, but it turns out that she has plenty of empty hours to fill as well. It's a bit weird at first, we never did speak much even when we saw each other every day, and ever since the Victory Tour Madge is a constant reminder of the mockingjay pin she gave me, which I know is being used as a symbol by rioters in several districts. One day she tells me a bit more about it, saying that it had been in her family for a while but that she had inherited it from her aunt. I tell her about how the design of the pin has become the height of fashion in the Capitol, figuring that's a safe enough tidbit to share.

Madge tries to teach me the piano, but I prefer to simply listen to her play. It turns out she's dying to go to the woods, and is very disappointed when I tell her that I don't go out beyond the fence any longer. She also becomes the first person outside of my family to find out about the baby, when I have to throw up twice during one visit to her house. If this is morning sickness, my body has a real funny definition of morning.

The weeks go by, and winter becomes spring. Peeta's birthday passes, and mine is fast approaching. I don't see anything different in the mirror yet, but Peeta swears he can see my stomach beginning to grow, and my pants are getting a bit tighter. When we go to bed at night, Peeta lays his head on by stomach and talks to the baby. I don't think the baby understands much, according to Mom it's about the size of my finger right now, but Peeta won't be dissuaded, and to be honest I find it absolutely adorable. I can feel my fears and anxieties slowly ebbing as I'm lulled to sleep by the sound of Peeta describing various pastries our child will learn to help him make for me.

…..

"Well, get ready, sweetheart," Haymitch says as he barges into our kitchen unannounced. It's late in the morning, but I've been so tired lately that I'm actually sleeping in for the first time in my life, and we've just finished breakfast. I'm seated at the table with a cup of tea and the last of my toast. Peeta was preparing some dough on the counter for dinner later before turning his attention to Haymitch. "Cameras will be here next week to tell all of Panem that you've got a bun in the oven," Haymitch continues.

"Already?" I say, looking down at my decidedly not-protruding stomach. I can finally see the beginning of a bulge in the mirror, but it's still small enough that it isn't noticeable when I'm wearing clothes.

Haymitch follows my gaze, studying my midsection. "I guess they'll figure something out."

"They may actually prefer it this way," Peeta suggests. "They can fake up a cute little tummy without having to deal with any of the other ways a woman's body actually changes later in pregnancy."

Haymitch narrows his eyes at Peeta. "That sounds just like them. You sure you're not aiming for a job with Capitol television?"

Peeta rolls his eyes and turns back to his dough. I say, "There's no need to be insulting, Haymitch."

"Are you kidding me?" he asks. "That squawking woman woke me up at the ass end of the morning to tell me about something that isn't even happening for another week! I'll insult whoever I damn well please."

"It's nearly eleven," I point out.

"Ass end of the morning!" he repeats. Then under his breath he grumbles, "See if I save your ass from the Hunger Games again."

...

As luck would have it, we were already planning on eating with Peeta's family that night. I bite my lip as I stand in front of the mirror later that day, braiding and rebraiding my hair in a futile attempt to calm my nerves. We have to tell Peeta's family about the baby tonight, something we've both been putting off for too long. I carefully consider my reflection, trying to see myself the way I know his parents will. Do I look like a mother? Do I look like a responsible adult ready to take on the responsibility of raising a child?

No. I look like a child. I'm not as scrawny as I used to be; I've been eating like a Victor for almost a year now and three months into my pregnancy my body has changed somewhat, even if the budge of my stomach is almost entirely hidden by my shirt. But I'm still small enough that I look much younger than my not-quite-seventeen years. And nervously biting my lip doesn't make me look any older, so I stop and press my lips together into a hard line instead. There. Now I look like an angry child.

I see Peeta enter the room behind me. In stark contrast to my childish looks, Peeta is practically the ideal image of a handsome young man. His boyish mop of blond waves is nicely contrasted by his broad shoulders and sharply-defined jaw. Where I'm still struggling to grow beyond scrawny, Peeta looks robust and strong. He looks like exactly the sort of person who is ready to take on the responsibilities of raising a family.

Peeta looks like someone who's spent his life wrestling and lifting heavy weights. I look like someone who's spent my life struggling and starving. I guess some things you just never quite grow past.

I can see Peeta's gaze rake up and down my body as he walks up behind me, before our eyes meet in the mirror. He wraps his arms around my waist; his large, warm hands coming to rest over my stomach. He pulls me flush against his front and I allow myself to lean against him. "You're so beautiful," he says against my hair.

My loud snort breaks the peaceful quiet of the room. "Yeah. Okay."

"You are," he says, and plants a kiss behind my ear. His hands begin to roam up and down my sides, from my hips up to my ribs and back again. "You're exquisite."

I know Peeta means what he says. And usually it makes me feel good that he sees me this way, even if I think it's mostly in his head. But right now I'm just not in the mood to be flattered, so instead I change the subject. "What about you?"

Peeta pulls himself up to his full height and puffs out his chest. The preening manages to draw a small smile out of me. "I don't think I'm too bad," he says. "You could probably do worse."

"It's impossible to imagine how I could do any better," I say. "You, on the other hand, you could probably have any girl you want."

Peeta drops another kiss behind my ear. "Lucky for me I already have the only girl I want," he says, and trails a few more kisses down the side of my neck.

It would be so easy to lose myself in this moment, lose myself in Peeta's kisses and his loving words and let them soothe all my fears and anxieties away, as they so often do. But I don't have that luxury right now. "We need to get ready."

Peeta halts his kisses, and leans his forehead down on my shoulder with a heavy sigh. "I suppose you're right. The last way we want to start off tonight is with my mother annoyed that we're late. Of course, she'll most likely find some other reason to be annoyed with us anyway."

"I'm sorry your parents hate me."

"Hey," Peeta says, wrapping me in a hug around the waist and pulling us together once again. "My parents don't hate you. My father loves you. And my mother hates _me_."

"I just want them to be happy for you," I say. "I want them to see me as someone who can raise their grandchild."

"They won't," Peeta says bluntly. "Katniss, no matter what we do it won't change my parents' reaction tonight. My dad will be happy but he'll think we're rushing into things too quickly. My mother will think I'm too stupid and worthless to raise a child, and you're from the Seam so she really shouldn't ever be burdened by your presence anyway, let alone as the mother of her first grandchild." He gives a sad shrug of his shoulders. "Maybe she'll eventually come around if it's a girl."

It makes me profoundly sad whenever Peeta talks about his family like this. He's so accepting of their behavior, so defeated about the whole thing. I understand it, of course. I understand the thought process that goes into the decision to stop hoping for things you know you'll never get. Even a parent's love. But it still makes me sad. "You deserve so much better."

"It's okay," he says. "I have you."

"Always," I promise.

…..

It's a very odd feeling, as we make our way to dinner later that afternoon. We can both feel it. These dinners with Peeta's family are always a bit difficult, his mother's behavior ensures that. But tonight should reach an all new high. Or low, depending on how you look at it.

Our hands are clasped between us but we say nothing as we walk down the road to town. We said everything we needed to before leaving. Peeta had stopped me just inside the door and said, "Listen, whatever happens tonight happens. It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is that once we get back home I'll have you all to myself, and we're finishing what we started upstairs before." I responded by kissing him until I couldn't breathe. No matter what, we'll go into this as one, and we'll come out of it the same way.

The only sound is the crunch of our footsteps, until I notice another set of footsteps approaching us. When we pass the next bend in the road we find Gale approaching us on his way to the Village.

I haven't seen Gale very much since we stopped hunting. I'll go to his house occasionally, but my visits are always awkward. Hazelle will offer me tea and make conversation, and the kids are the same as they ever were. But what passes between Gale and I is mostly stunted silences. I don't want to tell him about the baby yet, and I know he doesn't want to hear anything having to do with Peeta, so I don't know what to talk about. Without hunting or our shared starvation, we seem to be at a loss for anything to say to one another.

Gale never comes to my house. I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen him in the Victor's Village, always accompanying Hazelle to her job at Haymitch's. The effect Hazelle has had on Haymitch's standard of living is remarkable. I'm still caught off guard when I go into his house and find it fresh and clean, with food warming on the stove. It's such a stark contrast to before the Victory Tour, when his house was filled with trash and empty liquor bottles, and I'm not sure I ever saw fresh food over there except for the bread and game that Peeta and I brought him. Now his house looks so good that, if I didn't know better, I'd think he had simply left his trash dump behind and moved to one of the other, empty Victor's houses.

Gale came with Hazelle the first few days, despite her protests, and he still does occasionally. He seems to think she needs protection, like Haymitch might attack her or something. But for all of his loud complaining, Haymitch is harmless, so long as you watch out for his knife hand when you wake him up.

I have no idea what he's doing here now, though. Hazelle is only at Haymitch's for an hour or two each day, now that the initial heavy cleanup is done. She would have been home hours ago.

Soon enough we're standing face to face. We all greet each other, though Gale seems to eye Peeta warily. "You two on your way somewhere?"

"Dinner with my family," Peeta answers.

"Were you coming to see us?" I ask.

"Not exactly," Gale says. "Rory's over at your house. Well, your mom's house, I guess. He was supposed to come home for dinner, but he seems to have lost track of time." Gale pauses, and takes another look at me. "You okay, Catnip? What're you all bundled up for, it's pretty warm today."

I'm wearing a big, poofy winter coat Cinna sent home with me after the Victory Tour. "I've just been feeling chilly lately," I say. The truth is exactly the opposite, the last couple of months I've actually felt much warmer than normal. My mother says that's common in pregnancy, but I've never been more grateful for Peeta's tendency to leave the windows open every night. It's absolutely stifling closed up in this heavy coat, but just before we left the house I became paranoid that my stomach was visible despite my loose shirt, and threw the coat on to hide it.

Gale frowns in thought. It's clear he doesn't entirely believe me. "You're sweating and your face is red. Are you sure you're not coming down with something? Maybe you should check in with your mother."

"We just saw her yesterday, she said it wasn't anything to worry about," Peeta lies smoothly.

Before I can stop him Gale reaches out and lays his hand over my forehead. "You're burning up! You shouldn't be walking around like this."

"I'm fine, Gale!" I snap at him, knocking his hand away. "I'm just… You're right, it's just a bit warm in this coat." I unzip the coat and let it hang open. "There. I feel a much better now."

Gale shakes his head. "Katniss…" he begins, but then he trails off. His eyes are wide, and he's staring at me.

Staring right at my stomach.

I can tell immediately, he knows. However little I'm showing, however hard it is to tell right now. He knows how I move, how I stand, how I hold myself. He can tell something is different. Or maybe he just knows me too well to be fooled. "Gale," I begin, but I don't know what else to say after that.

"Are you…" he says, and it sounds like something inside of him is broken. He stops, and swallows. Then his jaw clenches. "This was your part of that deal, wasn't it? This is what Snow got from you."

I don't think I need to confirm that, so I say nothing. Peeta says, "Gale, you need to calm down-"

"Don't tell me what to do, townie!" Gale cuts him off. "This is all your fault! How could you do this to her, offering her up to the Capitol like a brood mare? Were you that desperate to get into her pants?"

"Nobody did anything to me, Gale," I say. "This whole deal was my idea. I agreed to this."

"I don't believe that for a second," Gale says. "You never wanted to have kids. You were pretty damned clear about that."

"Things change," I say.

"What could have possibly changed to make you suddenly want to have kids?" he demands.

"I fell in love with their father!" I say back to him.

It's silent after that. Gale opens and closes his mouth several times before he speaks. "Well. That's just great. Really. I can picture it. Just the two of you, your little townie baby, and President Snow. One big happy family. I hope you're all real happy together." With that he stalks off back towards town, his trip to retrieve Rory seemingly forgotten.

"Should we go after him?" Peeta asks. Part of me wants to, but I know better than to prolong an argument with Gale. At times like this it's best to let him cool off before bringing the topic up again. There's no telling what he'll do when he's this angry.

We give him a few minutes head start before continuing on towards the bakery. And I'm sure to keep my coat zipped up the whole way through town.

…..

Compared to the explosive fight with Gale, telling Peeta's family is almost mundane. Barlee is quiet. Rye makes bawdy jokes about the conception. Peeta's father smiles at us even as his eyes look concerned. His mother makes her share of nasty comments. "No grandchild of mine will be Seam trash!" "You always planned on trapping him like this." "How do you know it's even yours?" She's predictable, if nothing else.

The reaction has just died down into a tense quiet when I first notice the noise coming from outside. There's some sort of commotion in the town square. I can feel Peeta tense up beside me at the noise. Rye and Mr. Mellark have noticed the sound as well, and Barlee looks sad all of a sudden. "What is it? What's going on?" I ask.

"Out in the square…" Peeta begins, but then he trails off. Now that I'm listening carefully, I can hear another sound. A faint whistling in the air, followed by a snap and the reaction of a crowd. And it's clear that I'm the only one in the room who doesn't recognize the sound.

"Haven't had one in more than a year," Mr. Mellark comments.

"Probably one of your fellow Seam rats," Mrs. Mellark sneers. "Maybe it's even the real father."

Somehow I have to know what they're talking about. I get up from my seat and go to the window that overlooks the square. I can feel Peeta behind me, but he doesn't try to stop me from looking.

It's hard to see from this angle, but the crowd is centered at the far end of the square, by the old whipping post. Someone is at the post, their wrists bound and tied to a nail that has been driven through the neck of a dead turkey. What used to be his back is a raw, bloody slab of meat. Standing behind him is a man dressed in a Head Peacekeeper's uniform, but not the rumpled uniform of old Cray. This is a tall, muscular man with sharp creases in his pants.

It takes me a moment, but I recognize the man tied to the post, even though I can't see his face. After years of stalking the woods together, Gale's body is as familiar to me as my own. But even seeing him like this, somehow the pieces of the picture don't quite come together in my mind until I see the Peacekeeper raise his whip once again.

And then I'm bolting out of the apartment and down into the square.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Gale. What have you done?
> 
> This chapter wound up a bit long, and the next one a bit short, but they both have ending spots that were too good to pass up.
> 
> If you read Peeta in this chapter advocating for telling people everything they need to know to protect themselves and trusting people with the truth, and heard references to how Katniss and Haymitch kept Peeta in the dark immediately after the Hunger Games, then congratulations, you're more perceptive than Katniss is.
> 
> In Catching Fire Katniss mentions that the new whipping post and gallows that Romulus Thread has built are mere yards away from the bakery, and since they're all centered on the town square it's not too much of a stretch to assume the old one wasn't too far away either. Full credit for the idea that Peeta and his brothers would have grown up witnessing any floggings that happened in the square goes to gentlemama (who came up with it) and arollercoasterthatonlygoesup / everlarkbakery (who first published it).
> 
> Next chapter: Oh, Gale. What have you done?
> 
> Preview quote from Chapter 17:
> 
> _"I'm not taking the fall for this one when the Capitol finds out."_


End file.
